


The Rat Man's Trials

by Lesatha



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesatha/pseuds/Lesatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minho wakes up in a blinding white room. Everything is so silent that in his hazy state of consciousness, he fears his ears fail him for a few seconds. Maybe one of the explosions from the battle was too much, too close and…</p><p>Minho coughs, his throat burning and his whole body hurting. At least now he knows his ears still work, though the movement stretches the burns on his face and neck. Wincing, he rolls on his side, already balancing his legs off the bed to get up.</p><p>“Shuck,” Minho rasps.</p><p>***Set after the end of the Scorch Trials movie. My take on what happens to Minho after WICKED captures him and how he reunites with Thomas and Newt.***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I kept minor elements from the books (like Minho's burns after the lightning storm and the telepathic link between Teresa and Thomas), otherwise I followed the events of the Scorch Trials movie. Also, the torture isn't very detailed.

Minho wakes up in a blinding white room. Everything is so silent that in his hazy state of consciousness, he fears his ears fail him for a few seconds. Maybe one of the explosions from the battle was too much, too close and…

Minho coughs, his throat burning and his whole body hurting. At least now he knows his ears still work, though the movement stretches the burns on his face and neck. Wincing, he rolls on his side, already balancing his legs off the bed to get up.

“Shuck,” Minho rasps.

He is in a narrow bunk, the only furniture around being a toilet, a sink, a table and two chairs. It looks more like a prison –like WICKED– than a hospital. Bringing his hand to his neck, Minho realizes his burns have been bandaged. He pushes his t-shirt –a clean one, he notices – up his chest and yes, white gauze covers all his burns, providing some relief from the pain.

But he has lost enough time making sure he isn’t missing a limb and as Minho looks for a way out, all the memories come back at once. WICKED attacking them, Teresa’s betrayal –Minho still has trouble believing that– WICKED firing at them, at Newt, Thomas… Shuck. Were they caught too? He doesn’t think so, but anything could have happened after he passed out. Anything.

Minho sucks in a deep breath, glancing around the room. He would call for them, he would scream his friends’ names if this could get him a proof they’re alive, but considering he’s probably back at WICKED… He can’t draw these slintheads’ attention to Thomas, or Newt, or Fry. And with the discreet camera set up in a corner of his room, no doubt his actions would be noticed. Minho won’t give WICKED more leverage than they already have. Which is, a lot.

Glancing murderously at the camera, Minho pushes off the bed and on his feet. He heads for the little sink on the far side of the room as his body screams for water, but every step is a trial in itself. Even back in the Glade, Minho can’t remember a day his muscles felt so stiff. The mere act of putting his feet on the ground hurts.

Minho only has taken a few sips of water when the door swings open. He jumps backwards, shoulders hitting the wall, relaxing a bit as he recognizes Janson. Not that the sight of this slinthead reassures him, but the man walks in alone with no visible weapon. Minho smirks. Janson might not be planning on attacking or inflicting pain, but perhaps he should think about defending himself. Or he’s too arrogant to assume Minho may be a danger to him.

Janson stops in the middle of the room, standing next to the metal table. He smiles at Minho, who’s still standing in his corner, and sits down, gesturing at him to do the same.

“Hello, Minho. No need to be afraid. I’m just here to talk with you.”

Minho bristles, taking a stiff step towards the table.

“You think I fear you?”

Janson leans back in his chair, confident eyes trained on his face. Another smile stretches his lips, making his rat face look even sneakier.

“I’m _sure_ you fear me. Usually, you might do a great job of hiding it, but today you’re just a little boy cowering in a corner, left all alone to lick his wounds. You _are_ afraid, Minho.”

Minho shrugs, walks to the table and slumps in his chair, staring at Janson.

“If you say so, Rat Man.”

Janson’s polite mask cracks just enough to reveal a hint of annoyance.

“Respect never was your strong suit,” he sighs.

“Oh, I respect many things.” Minho crosses his arms on his chest, steeling his features. “Just not you.”

“If you care about your friends, you’ll learn to watch your tongue. Quickly.”

How Minho represses his shiver, he has no idea.

“My friends are safe.”

“Of course they are,” Janson grins. “We got them back too.”

Lies. It has to be lies.

“You’re not smart enough to catch them, Mister Rat Man.”

“Many things happened after we stunned you. Getting your friends back is one of them.”

“Then I want to see them.”

“You will. There’s one thing you must do before that, though.”

Rat Man flashes him a truly happy grin, and that is shucking scary.

 

***

 

Janson takes Minho to a room and introduces him to Lincoln. Lincoln who writes his friends’ names on a board and asks him to choose who is going to live.

Minho won’t give them a name. Lincoln can hit as many times as he wants –he does– but Minho won’t give up. Not that he isn’t tempted to say, as he swallows his own blood, that if someone should die, he would rather it be Teresa instead of Thomas or Newt. Shuck it, though. He isn’t giving up on  _anyone_ .

He doesn’t say any name.

 

***

 

“What happened?”

The feminine voice echoes in the corridor as the guards drag Minho back to his room. He can’t raise his head, can’t really walk either. With one eye already swollen shut, he wouldn’t see much anyway.

“What happened?” the girls repeats.

Minho hears hurried footsteps coming his way, and the guards stop, letting him slump downwards several inches. Thin, cool fingers frame his sore face, and Minho winces when some of them brush against his still tender burns.

“What did you do to him?”

Minho recognizes this voice. This time he jerks his head away, wincing for a wholly different reason.

“Shuck off,” he spits, forcing one eye open to glare at Teresa.

To her credit, she doesn’t look like she’s faking her worry; wide blue eyes darting between him and someone standing aside.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt them,” she says, ignoring Minho. “You promised –you… You gave me your word!”

“Teresa,” the Rat Man sighs from somewhere Minho can’t see. He doesn’t even try, to be honest. “This was part of the trials, you know that.”

“Yet you–”

“Enough! Get her to the lab!”

The Rat Man’s voice rings painfully in Minho’s head, as well as the other people urging Teresa to step back, and he just wants them all to shut up. Until delicate fingers brush his skin again.

“They don’t have them,” Teresa whispers in his ear, her voice covered by the turmoil around them.

Minho is quite glad he didn’t give up on anyone back in that room.

 

***

 

Janson visits him again the next day. Well, Minho believes it’s the next day. He doesn’t have access to a watch or a window to prove it.

In a perfect repetition of the previous day, Janson sits at the table, putting some stuff on it. Minho doesn’t move from his bunk. He couldn’t care less. Teresa told him the others weren’t prisoners, and maybe he’s a shuck idiot, yet he wants to believe her.

“I won’t give you one of their names,” Minho mutters. He won’t play along with their sick game, whatever it is. “So you can either leave or start beating me right now.”

“No need to be so dramatic. I am only bringing you soup and some ointment for your wounds.”

“Then you can leave them here.” Minho turns his head to the Rat Man, hoping his one good eye can carry all his hatred. “Unless you want to rub some ointment on my ass. Got some nasty burns there too.”

“I know what Teresa told you. I’m here to talk about it.”

Or to trick him for whatever other trials WICKED has in store. Minho sits up, nodding towards the bowl Janson put on the table.

“That soup of yours, is it hot?”

The Rat Man’s face brightens at the surrender.

“Of course. Did you ever have to complain about the food WICKED provided you?”

Minho snorts, dragging himself from the bunk to his chair. He brings the bowl of steaming soup to his lips with care. Very hot, as announced. Very good. He sets it back in the middle of the table and reaches out for the ointment, but the Rat Man grabs the little tube before Minho can touch it and waves it under his nose.

“I’m sure you desperately need to ease the pain, but it will come later. First, we must talk about your friends and the Right Arm.”

“Oh. And what do you want to know?”

“They left their camp. Where could have they gone? What were you planning to do if we hadn’t attacked?”

Minho grits his teeth, ignoring the pain it sends through his jaws.

“I said I wasn’t giving you any name.”

The Rat Man smiles at him like he is a child making him lose his precious time.

“Yes, Minho. We established that quite well, thank you. Now all I’m asking–”

“No!” Minho shouts. “I am not giving you a name, now or ever, and I’m not giving you anything else, shuck-face!”

At last, the horrid smile slips away, replaced by an angry blush creeping on Janson’s cheeks.

“You listen to me, boy! You’re a property of WICKED, you don’t get a say in this. You will talk one way or another, so you’d better start now.”

Wherever they are, his friends are safe. Thomas is safe with Newt. Just the thought of compromising that makes Minho’s hands shake with rage.

“Your property said no,” Minho hisses.

Janson’s fingers twitch like he wants to hit him –the feeling is mutual– but Minho moves quicker. He swats the bowl with the back of his hand, sending it flying towards the man. The burning soup splashes all over his chest and the Rat Man jumps from his chair, screaming. All pain from his own wounds forgotten, Minho tackles him to the ground, fists flying to any part they can reach.

“You’d better keep the ointment,” he says as a nice hook catches Janson’s jaw. “You’ll need it!”

Minho hits him again once or twice before guards come in and put him to a forced sleep.

 

***

 

Minho’s next meeting with the Rat Man isn’t as pleasant. He is tied to some sort of big hospital chair, feeling shucking exposed under the man’s piercing gaze. In a room full of weird, sharp tools. Minho still hopes that’s a scare tactic.

“Ah, Minho,” Janson says, looming above him. “I see why the Creators made you the Leader. You would do anything to protect the group. We’re very much alike that way. But at one point, a leader must start taking the right decisions, no matter how hard it is. Let me tell you, you’ve done quite poorly in that area until now.”

“Go get shucked by one of your Grievers, you shank,” Minho spits. “Then we’ll talk.”

The Rat Man tuts, leaning back. His cold eyes sweep over Minho’s body and suddenly he reaches for his hips, and Minho can’t stop his body from trying to jerk away. However, the Rat Man just grabs Minho’s t-shirt and folds it back –almost with care– to reveal Minho’s stomach. The man pauses, looking at the white gauze covering Minho’s left hip and a part of his stomach. Then he folds the fabric again, uncovering bandaged ribs. Minho tells himself that the shiver running through him comes from the chilly air.

“Some nasty burns, indeed,” the Rat Man whispers, almost to himself. “Surviving a lightning strike, that requires a bit of luck.”

“How do you know about the…”

“A little bird told me.”

Teresa.

“Of course she would tell you,” Minho spits.

“Oh, it’s not quite like you picture it, I believe.” Janson puts the pad of his thumb on the gauze covering Minho’s hipbone, applying the slightest pressure. Minho fights to stay still. “It came out like a panicked babbling, something along the lines of ‘he’s been hurt during the lightning storm, we couldn’t get him proper treatment, please make sure you heal him’. You see? Nothing I would personally consider as betrayal.”

Perhaps Janson isn’t wrong on that one. But right this second, Minho isn’t too willing to consider it. He can only brace himself for the unavoidable.

“And we could treat these burns, heal them so well they wouldn’t leave too many scars. Or,” Janson presses down his thumb and Minho bites his lips, head snapping aside, “I can make it ten times worse.”

The Rat Man releases the pressure, and Minho lets out a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding. The man’s hand curls on the gauze on his stomach, the threat hanging between them. Minho already knows he won’t win this round.

“We can stop here and there,” Janson insists. “No one has to suffer.”

“No,” Minho whimpers.

It’s pitiful, as pitiful as it was when Lincoln beat him, but that’s all Minho has for now. Janson’s fingers dig slightly into his stomach, and Minho’s hands curl into fists, straining against his bonds. He thinks about a mop of dirty blond hair, and also kind brown eyes and dark curls, though nothing really takes his mind away from reality.

“You’re building yourself a world of pain, Minho.”

The Rat Man presses his fingers into the damaged flesh without holding back and Minho howls, arches his back and tries to kick his legs free. Nothing stops the pain, and he keeps screaming long after the Rat Man lets go of him. Chest still heaving, he tugs on his bonds again to distract himself from the subsiding pain and in –futile– hope that they will break. Once he has managed to blink away most of his tears, Minho looks back at Janson. With his hands folded behind his back like the true shucking professional he is, the man has never seemed so smug.

“A whole world of pain,” the Rat Man whispers, eyes flickering to Minho’s bare midsection.

“Yeah,” Minho pants. It’s a struggle to get the words out after so much screaming. “And when I’m–” Saliva catches in his throat and he coughs, but nothing will keep him from speaking. “When I’m done building it, you’ll get an invite.” He pauses and as they stare at each other, Minho gets the feeling this is the very first time Janson really considers what he is saying. “And you’ll never leave it, my world of pain. Slinthead.”

As expected, Janson dismisses the threat and turns the situation to his advantage.

“And how do you plan to accomplish that, Minho? With the help of your little friends, when they come back to save what’s left of you?”

Minho turns his head towards the wall. He isn’t trying to hide how much he cares about the others, it would be pointless. He just can’t stand the hungry glint in the man’s eyes when he mentions them, certainly picturing what he would do if he had them tied to a chair like Minho.

“They know better than coming back here,” Minho says, not really addressing Janson.

He will never admit aloud that a part of him wishes they would come back and save him. Or at least put him out of his misery, because he knows what will happen after the torture. Janson will stick dozens of tubes in his body and leave him hanging like a piece of meat. And well, Minho would quite like to squeeze Thomas and Newt against his chest once more.

“I have huge doubts about that,” Janson laughs. “Thomas was ready to jump in our open arms to get you back.”

Minho can’t repress the small smile tugging at his lips.

“This dumb shank,” he replies, much softer than intended. Minho regrets the momentary loss of control right away. Of course, the Rat Man knows he cares about the others, but what does he exactly know about Thomas and Minho?

“Hmm,” Janson mutters, grabbing Minho’s chin and forcing his head back towards him. “I bet they’ll join you sooner than you think.”

As if the Right Arm would let that happen.

“Whatever you say.”

The Rat Man grins, much too pleased with himself to Minho’s liking.

 

***

 

After several days, Minho loses track of why the Rat Man tortures him. Sure, he wants information about the Right Arm, but he puts a lot of effort for something he could acquire by his own means. With everything WICKED has at its disposal, Minho can’t believe they rely on him to locate the rebels. No. They’re studying his brain, or testing him for some of their trials, that’s what they are doing. Minho isn’t sure he can take this much longer before losing it.

Today the guards don’t bring him to same room as usual, though this one isn’t very original either. There’s Minho’s torture chair –he can’t find another way to refer to it– and more intriguing, a second one. On the bright side, because Minho likes to see a silver lining to every cloud, there’s no ugly sharp tool around.

Minho lets the guards tie him to the chair like the obedient little boy he’s become –Janson’s words, not his– and waits. The Rat Man’s absence unsettles him. Minho can smell a sneaky trick coming full force.

The door opens after a few minutes and he opens his mouth to throw some snarky comment at Janson, but his words die on his tongue as he sees Teresa instead.

“You.”

She approaches him with downcast eyes, grabs his t-shirt like Janson did so many times.

“Don’t,” Minho warns.

She lets go of the cloth, but pulls a familiar little tube out of her pocket. Minho allows himself to relax, just a bit.

“I know your burns aren’t healing,” she says, rucking the t-shirt up with slow movements.

“Understatement of the year.”

Teresa peels the gauze away from his stomach, where the Rat Man ‘worked’ on him the most. Letting a sound halfway between a hiss and a groan, Minho glances down. It’s horrible. Red skin, glistening in some places and with scabs in others. Although the sight of it is nothing compared to the constant pain stabbing him with every breath and move.

Minho almost shudders with pleasure as Teresa applies the cool ointment on the burns. It is WICKED made; at least it should be efficient.

“Why don’t they ask you?” Minho says when Teresa pauses to push more ointment on her fingers. “No offense, but you would have told the Rat Man everything about the Right Arm.”

“Vince never said anything in front of me. However, he spoke to Thomas. And Thomas doesn't hide anything from you.”

“So what? Thomas and I happen to share some good times here and there, and he tells me the rebels' secret plans? Please.”

Teresa raises her eyebrows at him but doesn't lose her soft, calm expression.

“You don't 'share some good times here and there', Minho. You mean much more to Thomas and we both know it.”

Minho widens his eyes at her, adding a tiny nod towards the ever-present camera in the corner of the room. The corners of Teresa's mouth turn downwards into a sad line.

“They know it too, both for Thomas and Newt,” she replies. “Janson always did.”

“So?” Minho shrugs. “He sent you here to play the good nurse, remind me how I should protect Thomas? Help bring him back to WICKED's safe world?”

“No. You shouldn't do that.”

Teresa takes a sharp breath, looking as surprised as he is by her words. Shaking her head, long curls bouncing around her, she puts Minho's shirt back in place and tucks the ointment back in her pocket.

“The others must stay away from this place,” she adds, barely audible.

She seems sincere. Minho wants to believe she is, he needs it. Resisting Janson would be easier knowing he has someone else on his side. Yet without Teresa, Minho wouldn't be here, so all in all...

“Why are you here then? If you aren't part of some scheme from the Rat Man.”

“No idea. They said I was needed today.”

“Too bad for you.”

Minho closes his eyes for a few seconds. He could almost relax –and how ironic is it, that he finds some reprieve with Teresa. Perhaps having a normal conversation for the first time in days has something to do with this.

But since Minho never really relaxes, not here at least, his eyes snap open the moment he hears the doorknob creaking.

“You're late,” Minho chirps as Janson comes in. “Did you bring some biscuits? We were getting cozy in here.”

“I must admit, Minho, you never cease to amaze me. Anyone else would have lost that attitude by now.”

Minho lets go of his exaggerated smile, head falling back against the chair. He hasn't lost all of his attitude, sure, yet keeping up the pretense costs him a lot of energy.

“I'm not just anyone,” he replies with a joyless smile. “I was selected by WICKED.”

The Rat Man's face brightens, like for the first time he is truly proud of Minho. It makes him want to throw up.

“That's right, A7. WICKED chose the finest and at this stage of the trials, we only have the strongest left. It’s actually a good sign that you keep resisting so much, even though it complicates our work. Now, Teresa, please sit down in your chair.”

Minho realizes Teresa didn’t lie to him when he sees her hesitate. For a fleeting second, but she still hesitates. Minho would bet that a week ago she would have sat down in this chair without batting an eyelid. Today she slides in the seat with uncertain glances towards Minho, as if asking him for guidance. He replies with a small, hopeless shrug. He is no expert, though judging by his recent experience, it does look like she joined their little party.

Of course, the Rat Man notices their silent exchange and gestures at the camera with a smirk. Less than ten seconds later, two guards come in; one staying by the door and the other walking over to Teresa, tying her wrists to the armchairs with the thick leather bonds. Then that same guard places himself next to Minho and upon a nod from the Rat Man, he rips away the gauze covering Minho’s neck burns.

“Ow! Watch it, you shit shuck-face!”

“Language!” Janson barks.

“Shuck you, rat face! What is it with your bodyguards anyway, you’re too tired to do your own dirty work?”

If Newt were there –thank everything, he isn’t– he would clamp his hand over Minho’s mouth, or elbow his side, or go with a mere ‘Shut your hole, Minho’. Without Newt to calm him, he can’t help himself. It is the exhaustion talking, as much as the pain, and it’s not  _reasonable_ –this would be one of Thomas’ arguments– but shuck it, Minho’s neck feels like it is on fire. The guard gapes at him, seeming personally offended on Janson’s behalf. He takes a step closer and Minho snarls at him.

“You’re a damn little beast,” the man growls. “We already warned you about your lack of respect towards Director Janson. He provides you with a bed, food, wat–”

Minho spits, catching him right on the cheek. Such a dumb move Newt would faint.

“Shuck your Rat Man director, and shuck you too!”

No matter how he behaves, Minho will suffer, lose his mind. He might as well get a little fun out of it, and these days, he doesn’t have options other than yelling and cursing. Besides, if he manages to drive them crazy, they’ll focus on him, lock him away and forget about Teresa. Okay, they won’t, but Minho never ceases to hope.

The guard grips Minho’s neck, fingers digging in his wounds on purpose. Between his own strangled whimpers, Minho thinks he hears Teresa yelling at them to stop.

“Enough,” Janson orders. “Physical threats don’t work on him and we are losing time.”

The guard steps back, replaced by the Rat Man, whose fingers start stroking Minho’s neck, making him shudder with anticipating dread each time they brush against the burns.

“Thomas told you about his telepathic link with Teresa, didn’t he?” Janson asks without preamble.

Minho doesn’t reply, though his frown gives him away. Of course, Thomas told him. At times, Minho wishes they shared a similar bond. It would have been useful in the Maze. And oh, all the fun he would have had with it. Probably much more fun than what he pictures Thomas’ and Teresa’s telepathic bond to be.

But it wouldn’t just be about fun. Everything would be so easier if Minho had Thomas –or Newt– in his head these days. Sometimes, when the pain gets too unbearable and he feels his defenses crumbling down, Minho pictures them by his side, urging him to keep resisting. Telling him that it’s okay, that he just has to hold on for a little longer. Minho cries and yells, but it works most of the time. When it doesn’t, it’s because he faints.

“We didn’t allow any contact between them these past days,” the Rat Man says. “We can’t risk Thomas trying to hurt her through the bond.”

“What’s your point?” Minho snaps.

Why does the man always rant, on and on and on, before he spills it? Minho hates it. The wait kills him more than the pain.

“My point is that today, Teresa is going to contact Thomas. Your friends already have spent too much time in the Scorch. We can’t let them endanger themselves any longer.”

Minho shoots Teresa a warning look, hoping it gets his message across: not a word, whatever happens.

“I should confess,” the Rat Man whispers low so only Minho can hear, “I believed they would have come sooner for you.”

“Too bad, uh?”

Minho smirks, hard and provocative while he wills his tears back down. Rat Man’s words shouldn’t sting so much. His friends may be far from this shuck place, and that’s what Minho wants. Nothing else.

“Why did you bring her here?” the boy asks. “Considering your… working relationship, I bet you could have asked her nicely.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Minho sees Teresa ducking her head, her hair thus hiding half of her face. He is half sorry for what he said. The Teresa who betrayed them deserves it, but the other Teresa, the caring one Minho thought he knew… he can’t hate her properly anymore. Even the betrayal was her way of caring about them and now that Minho had time to think about it, it doesn’t help his hating.

“Well,” Janson replies as he runs his forefinger on Minho’s raw skin, then raises it between them to study the shiny ointment gathered there. “Something tells me she needs a little motivation.”

Minho’s heartbeat quickens. He feels like Teresa could handle being tortured, perhaps better than him. But to protect someone, she would give up. She would do anything for someone she cares about. They can’t have that.

“Shuck you,” he exclaims. “We don’t even like each other! You Teresa, you’re the reason we’re in this klunk, so if you even try to reach for Thom–”

One guard stuffs a thick cloth in Minho’s mouth, turning his words into mumbles.

“We don’t want to hear anything else from you,” the Rat Man declares, “except screams.”

Minho strives to disappoint him, but the unexpected pressure applied a second later on a bad leg burn tears a howl out of his throat. Through the blur of his tears, he sees the horror in Teresa’s eyes and he shakes his head, again and again. Neither of them can break.

Soon, Minho starts hurting from so many places at once that he has to look away from her, eyelids shut tight. He blacks out blissfully.

 

***

 

Like the previous days, Minho comes to in his cell. He stopped calling it room long ago. Except he isn’t alone anymore –or now he’s hallucinating.

“T’resa?”

He coughs, the taste of blood heavy on his tongue. They went shucking hard on him today.

“Yes?” a weak voice replies.

Minho rolls on his side with difficulty, and thankfully it is the right one, much less burnt than the left. Teresa lays on her own bed on the other side of the small cell. From the parts of her face that her hair doesn’t hide, she doesn’t look too fresh either.

“You okay?” he croaks.

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound like you are.”

She sits up, waving his concern away. Her face sports a few bruises and a split lip, yet her gaze is much more alert than he expected.

“If you’re stuck with me,” Minho mutters, “it means you didn’t give Rat Man what he wanted.”

Her tiny smirk is enough of an answer, and Minho closes his eyes to savor their victory. Engrave it in his memories and use it to find some more strength when needed.

“Good that,” he whispers, drifting between sleep and consciousness again. “We can’t let them down. Aren’t allowed to.”

Sleep almost welcomes him, yet Minho startles awake as a hand touches his arm. It’s just Teresa, of course.

“I still have the ointment in my pocket.”

“Rat Man let you keep it?”

“He wants us to… bond, in some way. Become closer so it’s harder to resist the torture. I guess taking care of each other would work that way.”

She moves to push up his t-shirt, however Minho stops her with a weak hand.

“Don’t touch them now,” he orders, though it sounds more like a plea. “They’re too sore.”

She backs away with a nod, slumping back on her own bed. The young man studies her for a while, unable to decide how he feels about them becoming roommates. He doesn't hate the idea as much as he would have a few weeks ago. Perhaps he doesn't feel anything at all about it. Minho will just have to find a way to cry silently at night.

“How do you hold on?” Teresa asks, staring at the ceiling.

Minho spares a glance at the camera recording their every move and word. He doesn't care about many things anymore, but he can't afford to give them the tiniest bit of information.

“Same way you do, I guess,” the boy shrugs.

“They didn't torture me like they did to you.”

“Yeah well, perhaps your lucky days are over.”

She doesn't push on the issue, and Minho doesn't say that resisting is all he has left. Or that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have much to spill. Vince planned to get them to a safe place, fight WICKED. Beautiful ideals. Minho doesn't know the specifics.

But above everything else, Minho saw the hurt in Thomas' eyes after Teresa betrayed them. What if he –and all their friends– looked at Minho the same way, in case he surrendered to Janson? Maybe they would understand, considering the whole torture thing, but who knows how Janson could make it look like? Besides, Minho wouldn't forgive himself for talking.

“They’re studying our shuck brains, aren’t they?” Minho asks out of the blue.

“I suppose that’s part of it, yes.”

Not just a part. It’s the whole purpose, Minho would bet a lot on that. They may honestly want Teresa to contact Thomas, but they focus on their brains first. Otherwise, the Rat Man would have upgraded his torture levels. Minho might feel like a huge, raw bruise yet he knows it could get even worse. Maybe it will come later, or the Rat Man doesn’t want to dirty his hands too much.

Minho turns away to face the wall, as much as his bruised side allows. He is so tired. His first tears roll down without him noticing and he bites his hand just in time to stifle what would have been a loud sob. If Teresa heard something, she doesn’t comment on it. Minho appreciates it more than she probably thinks.

 

***

 

They burst into their cell sooner than usual. Middle of the night would be Minho’s guess. They drag both of them out of bed before Minho can wipe his still teary eyes. Then the guards push them through corridors the boy has never seen until they reach a large room where the Rat Man waits for them, looking sharp as ever.

“Minho,” Janson greets him like every other time.

His lips stretch into a smile somewhere between amused and winning as he takes in Minho’s reddened eyes.

“What happened?” the boy spits. “You had some wet dream and decided you wanted to see me?”

“Get his shirt off,” Rat Man sighs.

Oh, shuck. Shuck shuck shuck.  _Learn to use that bloody filter between your shuck brain and your mouth, Minho_ , Newt once said. Okay, he said it more than once. It has never been so relevant though. Minho’s fist flies to the biggest guard’s face, though the man catches it halfway and they manage to take the cloth off, not bothering about how it rubs on his skin.

“It wasn’t an offer, Rat Man,” Minho snarls, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself.

“Oh, I know. However, _I_ have an offer for you.” The Rat Man pauses for the dramatics as he approaches and stops in front of the boy. With slow gestures, he peels away one of the remaining bandages on Minho’s hip. “Same as always: save your friends. Become the Leader you’re meant to be and think about their well-being instead of your silly little fight against me.”

Minho doesn’t bother answering. He lets the Rat Man take off all of his bandages, his mind already reeling to guess what they’re going to do now. He never looks away from Janson as the man walks back to a large console, his fingers flying on the control panel.

“And you Teresa,” the Rat man adds, sparing her a glance. “You have always been a promising subject, better than most, even the Creators. Very protective.” He pauses again and chuckles, as if remembering some inside joke. “You’re a lot like Minho, despite being branded with a completely different role. Can’t you see you’re destroying everything you worked for?”

“This isn’t what I agreed to,” Teresa replies, voice unwavering. Beyond the tension permeating the room, Minho can sense the anger coming off of her.

“This is a no, then.”

The Rat Man pushes a button down on the console and a large panel slides up on the wall, revealing a window. Minho can’t see what’s outside, but a shiver runs down his spine. Obeying the Rat Man’s curt nod, the guards push him towards the door right next to the window.

“One last chance, Minho,” he says, coming closer. “Please, think of your friends. What about Newt, struggling through the mountains with his leg? Climbing and running all day with such a limp, can you picture how painful that would be?”

“Don’t talk about him,” Minho hisses between clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare talking about him! Limp or not, Newt could kick your shuck ass so hard you’d fly across the Scorch, from here to the mountains!”

Anger flashes in Janson’s eyes a second before he backhands Minho hard across the cheek. The boy answers him with a tight smirk. The pain doesn’t matter. Anything cracking the Rat Man’s perfect mask is worth it.

“Speaking of the Scorch,” the older man replies as he straightens his jacket. “I’m sure you remember how we could control the weather in the Maze. Always a beautiful sky above your heads? That was our work. I believe you’ll appreciate what we prepared for you here.”

The Rat Man stares for a little too long at his burns and the memories of the lightning storm swamp Minho’s mind. His muscles contract with fear but he can’t let it overwhelm him.

“So? You gonna fry me with one of these lightning storms?”

The Rat Man’s head jerks with an exasperated nod towards the door and the guards grab Minho’s arms, dragging him backwards.

“I survived that already, Rat Man! You’re gonna have to find something better!” Minho shouts.

Janson swirls on his feet and strides towards the boy right before the guards throw him into the dark room.

“When I told you to think about Newt, it wasn’t just about his leg,” he hisses, digging his fingers in Minho’s jaw. “What if I told you he isn’t immune to the Flare? Does it qualify as ‘better’?”

“Wh-“

Minho cuts himself off when the words register. Another lie, another ugly lie. He doesn’t get the opportunity to find out for sure, though: the guards push him into the room and he sprawls on soft sand, the only pallid light coming from the window.

“Remember, Minho, the longer you resist, the longer Newt is exposed to the Flare,” the Rat Man warns. He looks even more sadistic like this, standing in the only square of light.

“Shuck you!” Minho barks.

He doesn’t get any answer, which doesn’t matter. He tunes everything out, waiting for the first lightning strike. It never comes. Instead, it is like the sun rises, quicker than Minho ever witnessed. Now that he can see the whole room, he realizes WICKED recreated the Scorch, with sand and rocks. And the fake sun burning from the high ceiling. They’re going to fry him, just not the way Minho expected.

He groans, crawling towards a rock not even big enough to provide some shadow. The sand burns his clothed legs as much as his naked feet, and let’s not talk about the rest of his battered body. Sweat prickling his eyes, the boy collapses against the nearest rock.

“Your wounds will make you suffer to no end,” Janson comments, voice booming across the room.

Or maybe they’ll go too hard on him this time and Minho will die. It’s not the kind of freedom he wants but if he has to choose between a lifetime as a prisoner and death… Minho shakes his head, chasing away his momentary weakness. He can’t die. What if Thomas and Newt went back for him? They would put themselves at risk for nothing.

Minho whimpers. It has just been a few minutes, but his lips already dried, and licking them is beyond useless. If Minho could have some water… he would kill every single member of WICKED for water. Scratch that, he would kill every one of them, period. He doesn’t need a reason.

Minutes tick by and the stifling heat drives Minho crazy. He wants to destroy the room piece by piece, starting with the Rat Man’s window. He would if had the required strength. The Scorch –no, he isn’t in the Scorch anymore. This room sucks the energy out of him. Minho manages to curl around himself to hide his worst burns. That’s all.

When the Rat Man eventually turns off the fake sun, Minho feels like he’ll never be able to move again. He doesn’t have to, since they drag him out of the room. He can’t open his eyes well, after so much time under that bright light. Besides, his eyelids feel too heavy to try.

“Not bad, for half an hour,” he hears Janson say.

“Can he hear us?” one of the guards asks.

“Maybe. He’s taken worse without passing out. Bring him back to his room and make sure he is rehydrated.”

“Ter’sa,” Minho mutters, his tongue feeling alien in his mouth. Why he says her name, no idea. It came out as some odd reflex.

“Teresa will stay with us a little longer,” the Rat Man replies.

Minho blinks, trying to straighten his legs under him. He can’t see Teresa. He groans, but they take him out of the room. Without losing consciousness, he can’t really keep track of what’s happening either. His back screaming at him as the guards lay him down on something soft must mean he is in his cell again. They sting the crook of his arm with some sharp thing. Minho attempts to lift his head to see what it is, though that simple movement seems out of his reach. So he lets them do their stuff on him, hoping Teresa won’t have to go in the mini Scorch.

 

***

 

The bang of the door startles Minho awake. He glances around, spots Teresa on the floor right away. The slintheads didn’t even dropped her on her bed. The boy sits up with a grunt and feels a slight tug on his arm. Which seems logical, since there’s an IV attached to it. His first instinct is to rip it off, however he remembers Janson talking about hydration, and this may explain why he feels less shitty.

 

Minho grabs the IV stand and walks –sways– towards Teresa, then slumps to his knees next to her. A quick glance tells him there’s no sign of sunburn on her arms. He still has to make sure.

“Hey, are you thirsty?” Pushing her hair away with his fingertips, he adds, “what did they –shuck.”

They didn’t put her in the mini Scorch, no. They favored a good old beating instead, it seems. Nostrils flaring, Minho glares at the camera above him. He knows Rat Man watches, studies. Maybe enjoys. Minho rolls the IV stand further away and slides his arms around Teresa. He can’t carry her, yet he manages to drag her across the room, pausing once to catch his breath. Weak protests come out of Teresa as he hoists her on the mattress.

“You’ll be glad I did that, promise,” Minho huffs.

“Didn’t say… anything to them,” Teresa whimpers.

“I know.”

He doesn’t say it to comfort her; he knows, that’s all. Deep down, somehow he can’t doubt they’re stuck together in this until… well, better not to think about the future.

“I didn’t,” Teresa insists, a sob shaking her chest.

“Shh, don’t speak,” Minho whispers. “Wait here.”

He pushes himself off the bed and heads for the corner under the camera recorder, both hands on the IV stand. With a smirk, he gathers all his remaining strength and raises it in the air. A good swing is all it takes to shatter the camera recorder to the ground. Minho could almost giggle in delight. He picks up the little bag containing whatever WICKED deemed necessary to inject him and shuffles to the sink. They don’t have tissues or towels, nothing apart from the roll of toilet paper. That will have to do. Minho grabs a good amount of it and wets it with tap water, his movements slow as shuck.

“You can cry if you want,” he tells Teresa as he flops down on the ground next to her bunk. With delicate dabs, he starts wiping the blood off her face to get a better look at her bruises. “They won’t be watching us for a while.”

“They won’t like that.”

“Do you honestly care about what they like?” Minho snickers.

For once, he meant it as some good old sarcasm, nothing more. He didn't expect the awkward glance Teresa sends him.

“Do you?” the boy asks.

It comes out a little brusque, even to his own ears. At least his gestures don't falter and he keeps washing her face with light touches.

“I still believe they work for the greater good,” she replies. “But I don't agree with their methods anymore.”

Minho grabs some new paper and starts cleaning the cut on her cheekbone. Focusing on his task does help to reign his temper in.

“Besides...” she sighs, pushing his hand away to sit up. “I worked for them. Now that I have my memories back, I know we meant to help. I was one of them. I can't forget that so easily.”

“I can't either,” Minho deadpans.

_Brain to mouth filter, Minho_ , his imaginary Newt hisses.

“But you know,” he adds, shrugging, “Thomas was one of them too, so... I guess I can live with it.”

They don't say anything for a while, until Minho pushes himself on his knees and stretches his arm to resume his work on Teresa's face. She hisses when the wet paper touches her skin and swats his hand away again.

“Will you just let me?” he groans, exasperated. “Your shuck nose started bleeding again.”

“And you're pulling on your shuck IV,” she snaps back, snatching the toilet paper from him.

He gapes at her use of the Glader slang and at her sudden vivacity, then shrugs, readjusting his IV.

“Fine,” Minho grunts. “Do as you wish, roommie.”

Teresa gratifies him with an amused raise of her eyebrows.

“Roommie?”

“Sounds better than cellmate.” Minho turns around, hugging his side, to sit with his back pressed against the bunk. “It lifts my spirits up.”

Teresa chuckles behind him, so low he almost doesn't notice. He feels her shifting her weight on the mattress and a second later, the tube of ointment appears in his peripheral vision.

“Come on,” she simply says.

Minho doesn't need to be told twice. Whatever they put in this mixture, it is magic. The boy can't suppress his groan of relief as he applies it on his damaged tissues. The pain doesn't disappear -it never disappears, these days– though it decreases significantly, becoming some sort of dull throbbing. Nothing Minho can't take.

From time to time, Teresa hisses or lets out a deep exhale, and for a moment they both fill the room with their respective sounds of relief or pain. It is almost appeasing. It reminds Minho of the Glade, when Newt and he used to run the Maze together. After a long day, they would treat their sore feet or various scratches in some quiet part of the homestead. Paradise, compared to this.

“Thomas always kept an eye on you, these years when you were in the Glade,” Teresa declares, and Minho almost jumps out of his skin. The fondness in her voice is unmistakable. “Made sure you were okay. God, he drove me crazy whenever you weren't filmed by a beetle blade for a long time.”

Minho's eyes fill up with tears faster than he thought possible. It is embarrassing how quick he is to cry lately.

“Sounds creepy,” he croaks. But shucking heart-warming too.

“More or less what I told him back then. Though I believe -I'm not sure, it's hazy– you two met before the Creators sent you in the Glade. We rarely saw the other kids, yet I remember bits of us when we were younger. Besides, I refuse to admit my brain made up that memory of a seven-year-old Thomas babbling for two whole hours about _this very cool Korean kid_.”

Minho turns to face Teresa. She holds the now reddish paper pressed against a bump on her forehead, her features relaxed. They share a long look and for the first time since days, a grin fights its way on Minho's lips.

“To his credit, he was seven,” the young man says. “Still, he'll never hear the end of it if...”

If they ever see each other again. Just like that, Minho remembers how afraid he is. Afraid of what the Rat Man has planned next. Of dying. Of never seeing the others again. Terrified of them not coming to save him. Of them dying in an attempt to do so.

“I'm sure Thomas won’t leave you behind,” Teresa says, her eyes losing some of their brightness.

“Us.”

“What?”

“He won't leave _us_ behind.”

“After what I did... I doubt it.”

Minho would slap her knee if it weren't too much effort for his abused body.

“Please,” he tells her. “We're roomies. He’ll take us both.”

He says it like it settles the conversation, and it does. Minho shares her doubts, of course. Thomas may never forgive her. But if Minho has any say in it –and damn shuck, he will– Teresa won't rot alone in this place.

Also, he hopes he won’t have to rot here for too long either.

 

***

 

Minho can’t keep track of time anymore. However, he knows they’re well past the point of too long. Teresa and he don’t even manage to take care of each other. Maybe she would be strong enough, but she doesn’t get the opportunity to show it. After realizing his strategy wouldn’t work, the Rat Man keeps her tied to her bed. As for Minho, he doesn’t have be restrained. He is just exhausted, more often than not laying on his bunk between consciousness and oblivion. They torture him less than before, he believes. It’s hard to tell though. And there are more tubes stuck in him; putting things in, taking things out.

That’s why Minho feels so weak. Sometimes he lifts one hand to pull a tube out of him. It never goes further than this stage: his hand falls flatly on his stomach or on the mattress. Still, Minho tries, day after day.

If the boy is lucky, nice dreams of his friends interrupt the numbness. Frypan getting all giddy over a new dish he prepared. Cuddles with Thomas, who insists –and struggles– to be the big spoon. Newt, Thomas and he never got a chance to cuddle all together, Minho notes. It doesn’t brighten his mood.

On bad days, he has nightmares about Newt’s possible future.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for an implied reference to a past suicide attempt in this chapter. Nothing is explictly said or described, but it's better you know.

Minho is having some real sleep, for once. At first, he mistakes the loud bangs echoing around him as part of his dreams. It gets closer and louder by the minute, soon followed by shouts. It isn’t a dream. What did WICKED prepare this time?

“Roomie?” Minho croaks, squinting at Teresa. In their almost dark cell, he can’t distinguish her face. “You heard?”

“I did.”

Teresa sounds alert, and most of all, hopeful. Minho can’t understand why. Maybe she went crazy; they often wondered which one of them would lose it first. Or rather, Minho wondered and Teresa endured his rants.

“Hey, Minho. Minho! I think… it could be Thomas. Or the rebels. People are fighting.”

It takes him some time to process her words, but when he does, he shakes his head furiously, forgetting she can’t see him.

“Minho?”

“They can’t be here,” he mutters. “Too dangerous.”

“It’s real!” Teresa exclaims. Minho hears her mattress creak, added to the clicking of her bonds against the frame of the bunk.

“You won’t break them this time either,” the boy groans.

He just wishes all this noise could stop.

“If it’s Thomas, he’ll be looking for you,” Teresa insists. “We need to make some noise, try something.”

“’Kay.”

Perhaps if Minho helps her, she will stop talking. He pushes himself on his side and up on shaking arms, but gets tangled in his tubes and slumps on his front. He won’t make it out of his bunk. There’s a reason Janson doesn’t feel the need to tie him.

“I can’t,” he breathes. Pushes again on his elbows with a groan, to no avail. “I can’t.”

“Minho, you never give up, remember?” Teresa pleads. “Of all of us, you’re the one who always keeps going.”

“I’m… ‘m not giving up. I just can’t.”

And even if he could reach her, what would they do? They don’t have any light, they can’t leave the shucking room. They can only listen to the fight raging outside their door. Minho can’t keep his eyes open. Teresa’s voice fades as she calls his name. There’s a loud bang somewhere near, but Minho can’t bring himself to care, drifting away from consciousness as he is. A ray of light appears in the cell, he can sense it beneath his closed eyelids. People shout around him. The Rat Man probably found a new trial to renew his fun. Firm hands grab Minho’s shoulders to roll him on his back.

“Minho! Minho!”

He knows this voice. He spent hours with this voice screaming in his head, for so long it shouldn’t be a surprise to have it pop up in his mind like this. Minho blinks, swatting at the hands that keep shaking him.

“Minho! You hear me?”

Here, right in Minho’s face, stands the most vivid hallucination he ever had of Thomas, sharpened by the light surrounding it.

“You dumb shank,” Minho huffs in a breathless laugh.

“Glad to see you too,” his hallucination replies.

“Don’t… don’t vanish halfway like you did last time,” Minho scolds.

During his last session with the Rat Man, the pain had been too much. Both Thomas and Newt had left him in the middle of it, alone with his agony.

“Take the tubes out of him!” Teresa shouts from her bed.

The Thomas hallucination squints at her, hesitant fingers fiddling with some tubes on the back of Minho’s hand.

“You should do as she says.”

Another sweet, familiar voice. Minho raises his head and grins. Newt stands right behind Thomas, weapon in hand. His daydreams get better by the day, or it might be WICKED’s drugs.

“You’re back too,” Minho tells him.

“Do as she says,” Newt repeats.

He comes to kneel by the bunk, turning Minho’s face towards him. Really, no hallucination ever felt like this.

“Hey, Min. We’re here. For real.” Newt frowns, and Minho smiles again at the familiar sight. “Shuck, hurry Tommy.”

The hands on Minho’s cheeks, the ones on his hands and arms –they don’t hurt. Hands always hurt usually, except when it is Teresa’s. Minho winces as the tubes slide out of him, but the warm touches don’t disappear. They overcome the pain.

“You’re here,” Minho sighs.

“Yeah, come on, Min. Up you go,” Thomas urges, already putting Minho’s arm around his shoulders as Newt does the same with the other one.

Minho giggles –if they think he can walk, they’re all in for a good laugh. The two boys realize it a second later when his knees buckle under him.

“Shuck,” Newt huffs. “We need Vince.”

They head for the door but Minho drags his feet on the floor and wriggles the best he can between them. They’re not leaving like this. Not with Teresa still tied to her bunk.

“Teresa. Goes with us,” he pants.

“Not your best idea,” Thomas grunts.

It takes an incredible amount of effort for Minho to raise his head so he can stare Thomas down, but he does it.

“Last time I checked, I still was your leader.”

Thomas blinked. Several times. Perhaps because of the sudden coldness in Minho’s voice. On his other side, Minho feels Newt shudder as he takes a sharp breath.

“Glad to see you’re still you,” the blonde whispers, almost chuckles. “Thomas, help Teresa. Vince!”

Thomas untangles himself from Minho and settles him against Newt’s chest at the same time Vince barges in. Like the others, the bearded man holds a large gun. Considering how his eyes dart to the door every second, Minho guesses he was keeping watch.

“You gotta take Min,” Newt announces, already moving the dark-haired boy towards Vince.

Minho groans. He was perfectly content with his current position, warm between Newt’s arms –even if standing starts becoming a hardship. Vince doesn’t seem too pleased either, though he gives Newt his gun and leans forward to grab Minho.

“Careful,” Teresa says, appearing out of nowhere by their side. She has her hand wrapped around Vince’s wrist, totally unimpressed by the death stare he sends her. “His burns got worse.”

Someone rucks up his shirt, but Minho can’t see who. He is conscious enough to hear Newt’s gasped “Bloody shuck”, and that’s all. Hands lift him off the ground. As he closes his eyes, Minho becomes aware of the gunshots echoing closer than before. He spends his last bit of energy hoping they’ll get a good shot at the Rat Man.

 

***

 

“Help me cut his shirt.”

“Careful, he is moving.”

Minho’s head is pounding. These shuck voices in the background don’t help at all. He blinks, but everything blurs around him. Besides, with the bright light right above his head, it hurts too much to keep his eyes open.

Wait. Unknown voices and bright clinical lights… he’s back at WICKED. Or never left WICKED, that would be more accurate. At least this time they carefully peel the shirt away from him. Never expressed such consideration before.

“Shuck. Look at what they did.”

“You should have let me kill Janson, Tommy. I had a good angle.”

“Sure. And his men also had a good angle at _you_.”

If Minho’s still at WICKED, how can he be hearing Newt’s voice? And Thomas’? The drugs, it has to be. He blinks again, lifting one arm. Yeah, they stuck another tube in him. Just like Teresa said, they’re injecting him drugs. Perhaps new ones, that’s why he’s hallucinating Thomas and Newt.

“We have to move him on his side.”

“Yeah, well, maybe not now. With his injuries, it sounds like a bloody bad idea.”

“Let them work, Newt.”

Minho groans –if they could just stop talking. The voices in the room, the ones in his head, all of them. They keep him awake, too focused on the pain.

“See? Not a good idea, shank. Let him rest.”

“He has infected tissues on his side. The longer we wait, the worse it will be.”

There’s a scuffle somewhere in the room as someone sets their hands on him. He tries to bat them away, without much effect. And then fingers press on his burnt hipbone as they push him on his side –perhaps by accident, but nothing ever truly happens by accident with the Rat Man– and Minho howls. Like a long lost reflex, his hand curls into a fist and connects with something soft. A sharp yelp resounds above him, then nothing. He can sink back into darkness.

 

***

 

The next time Minho opens his eyes, his head isn’t hurting anymore and no light blinds him. Actually, he almost feels good, his whole body floating in numbness. That’s the good point. He tries to lift his hands up but they don’t bulge. That’s a rather bad point. The boy raises his head, notices the leather cuffs tying him to his hospital bed. However, any worry he could have about it vanishes the second he spots a mess of dirty blond hair lower on the bed. Newt, slumped on the mattress and sleeping with his face on Minho’s shin. Probably drooling on it. Minho would shout his happiness if it didn’t meant waking up Newt.

Lips curling up, Minho shifts his upper body to find a better position until the blonde awakes. As he turns his head towards the other side of the room –all made of metal, barely bigger than his previous cell– his smile widens. Thomas fell asleep in his chair at some point, head resting against the wall and mouth slightly open. In his case, Minho doesn’t have to wonder if he is drooling. He has proof right under his eyes. A low chuckle escapes him, and Thomas jumps in his chair. Okay, perhaps Minho wasn’t as discreet as he believed. Thomas wipes the corner of his mouth, eyes darting around the room. A wave of relief seems to wash over his face when he settles his gaze on Minho.

“You’re back,” he whispers, bringing his chair closer so he can sit by the bed. And hovers there, fingers tapping the mattress.

“I really need a hug, you know,” Minho croaks.

Thomas leans forward so fast he jolts the whole bed, as well as Newt. Though Minho can only hear the blonde’s indignant grunt, considering how Thomas has launched himself around him. The mattress creaks and then Newt appears in Minho’s field of view, nose pressed on his cheek, mumbling something close to “missed you, shank”.

“Hey guys,” Minho huffs.

They draw back just enough to let him breathe again.

“I love you both and would love to reciprocate and all that, but…” He raises his eyebrows and pulls on his bonds, making the buckles ting against the metal rail. “I appreciate that you finally decided to share your kinks with me, though.”

Newt grunts, moving his hand like he wants to slap Minho’s shoulder but decides against it at the last second, while Thomas rolls his eyes with an affectionate smile.

“It wasn’t our decision,” Thomas apologizes. “The doc said WICKED had given you drugs and the others feared your reactions.”

“So we had to let them do it,” Newt adds. “Especially after you punched the doc.”

A distant part of Minho’s mind might remember that moment.

“In my defense, he hurt me,” he groans.

“We saw,” Thomas replies, exchanging a dark look with Newt. “We tried to bargain, though.”

“A real success.”

Newt and Thomas smile in sync at the snide remark, and Minho wonders if he should tell them how cute they look when they do so. Newt moves down the bed with a smirk, working the buckle open with his long fingers.

“ _Thomas_ tried to bargain. So the doc decided we had to leave and let you rest.”

“Did you pull the scary face?” Minho asks, grinning.

“Yeah,” Newt replies, smirk widening. “No way you were going to wake up alone in a cold room.”

Both hands now free, Minho pushes on his arms to sit. And falls back miserably on his pillow, biting back a whimper as he pulls on his various wounds. He only realizes how hard he bites when Thomas soothes his lower lip with his thumb, brow furrowed. Minho unclenches his jaw, closing his eyes for a second.

“Perhaps that’s why the doc wanted to tie you up,” Newt says. “Must have guessed you would pull that kind of stunt.”

“I was just…”

“It’s time to rest, Min. I swear, if you start running around or straining yourself in any way, I’ll buckle you to this bloody bed myself.”

Minho’s first instinct is to turn to Thomas for support, but it would be like admitting defeat, so he goes for a mere nod. Newt can be worse than any zealous doctor, gods Minho knows that.

“Where are we, anyway?” he mutters.

“Right now, in a berg,” Thomas replies.

“A berg?”

“And this berg is in the mountains, far from WICKED. They won’t find us here.”

“And the Rat Man?”

“Rat Man?” Newt asks.

“The slinthead. Janson,” Minho clarifies, his nose scrunching up on its own accord. “Is he dead?”

“Not yet,” the blonde sighs. “It’s just a matter of time.”

If he is honest with himself, Minho would feel better if Janson had kicked the bucket. On the other hand, maybe he’ll be the one to blow up his shuck face, so all in all…

“Hey,” Thomas says, wrapping his hand around Minho’s collarbone. “You okay?”

“Yeah, tired. Burns hurt a bit.”

Thomas swirls towards a small tray, retrieving a tube similar to the ointment Teresa used on him. Newt already has a hand on the sheet covering Minho’s chest. Except he won’t have that. He doesn’t want both of them looking at the sick mess his skin has turned into.

“No.”

“Minho,” both boys reply.

“Wow, how many times did you rehearse that?”

“Don’t start,” Newt warns.

“You two aren’t going to fuss over me like this. Give me the tube.”

Thomas’ face softens as he reaches for Minho’s hand. Which annoys him even more, even though he doesn’t know why.

“We saw your burns. You don’t have to hide.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. Where is Teresa?”

“Don’t tell me you want her as your nurse,” Thomas says, his face a comic mix between disbelief and horror.

“Where is she?”

“Locked away in another room,” Newt tells him. “That was Vince’s condition to let her stay.”

Somehow, Minho expected it. No, he was sure of it. He can’t blame them but… she doesn’t deserve to be locked away, again.

“I want to see her. Alone.”

Newt pinches the bridge of his nose, making Minho wonder if he’ll dare shouting at him today. Probably not.

“Vince won’t allow it,” comes his dry answer.

“Vince didn’t share a torture room with her.”

It is a low blow, intended as such. Minho’s heart clenches when Thomas and Newt both recoil. Yet it’s true; they weren’t in that room. Teresa was and Minho needs her, and he doesn’t want her kept as a shucking prisoner.

“I won’t get whatever treatment they prepared for me if I don’t see Teresa.”

“Minho!” Newt barks, at last. “It’s not a game, we’re still all in danger and you–”

“You think I’m playing?” Minho snaps back. “I can’t even sit up by myself and you think it’s a game for me? She’s the sole reason I didn’t turn as mad as a shuck Crank back there!”

The outburst leaves him sore and breathless.

“Please, guys. She messed up but she’s with us, you have no idea how much.”

Newt stares at him for a little while before dropping back in his chair, shoulders slumped.

“We can’t take that decision alone. I’ll talk to Vince, maybe I’ll convince him…”

He interrupts himself as the door slides open and a middle-aged man with burning red cheeks comes in. He doesn’t wear the white clothes doctors and scientists had in WICKED, though his strict style identifies him as such. That, and a shining black eye. Maybe the man took part in the attack on WICKED, yet Minho catches the exact moment his lips thin into a displeased line when he notices Minho’s free hands. He definitely didn’t get his black eye during the attack.

“Hi, doc,” Minho cheers.

“Are you kids alright? I heard shouting.”

“Lovers’ spat,” Minho replies at the same time Newt and Thomas shrug.

The doctor nods like Minho is some child babbling nonsense, grabbing his wrist to check his pulse, then taking a bottle of pills out of his pocket.

“You’ll need painkillers soon,” the doctor declares. “We don’t have all the equipment I would like, but with WICKED’s ointment, it should help.”

“He won’t take them,” Thomas sighs.

“Then I'll force them down his throat if I have to.”

The others whip around at the sound of this new voice and now that the doctor has moved out of the way, Minho notices Vince leaning near the open door.

“I'd love to see you try that,” Newt tells the rebel.

He turns back to Minho with a sly smile, which the dark-haired boy has to reciprocate. Because as much as Newt might want to witness that –they both know Minho would give Vince hell– the warning in his voice has never been so clear.

“We don't have to come to such ends,” Thomas intervenes.

“I hope so,” Vince replies. “We didn't risk our lives so he can die of untreated wounds under our eyes.”

“He wants to see Teresa, nothing more,” Thomas pleads.

“The girl? Why? She's the reason you're in this bed.”

“From my point of view, it's quite positive that I’m in this bed here and now,” Minho retorts.

“No. Forget it.”

Vince spins on his heels and disappears out of the room, effectively ending the conversation. Swearing, Minho grabs the metal rail of the bed with both hands to hoist himself in a sitting position.

“Hey!” he shouts in the foolish hope it will bring the rebel back.

It only leads the doctor and Thomas to rush by his side, forcing him to lay down.

“God, he recovers quickly,” the doctor mumbles, a hint of admiration in his tone.

Slower, Newt joins them, casually covering Minho's hand where it is still clutching the rail. The little squeeze he gives it next has nothing casual about it.

“I'll talk with Vince. Just... try to rest and take your pills, shuck-face,” the blonde adds in a whisper.

It is surprisingly easy to relax after that. Minho lets Thomas and the doctor give him his pills and manhandle him back on his pillow. Once the older man utters some last recommendation and leaves them alone, Minho cracks a weary smile at Thomas.

“I'm glad you're alive, shank. Almost started missing you.”

He expected the smaller boy to scold him for the sarcasm, not give him an uneasy smile. Thomas' eyes keep wandering down the sheet covering Minho, no doubt thinking about those ugly burns he got to see. He would have seen them one day or another, but the thought doesn't make Minho happier.

“We tried to get to you sooner,” Thomas says. “But it took us some time to elaborate a plan.”

It's not the right moment –Thomas looks so beaten up about it– yet a laugh bubbles out of Minho's throat. Not the first time finding a plan proved to be a bit tedious.

“I'm here now. One day I should thank you guys for it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Thomas chuckles.

“Make me.”

It isn't a taunt. More like a whispered invitation, nothing like the first time Minho got Thomas to kiss him. The words were the same, yes, though they had been fueled with fire and provocation. He doesn't remember in details what had initiated it. A bicker more intense than usual in the Glade and that was it. In fact, Minho never thought Thomas would choose this option to indeed shut him up, although he always denied it.

Now that Minho thinks about it, his first kiss with Newt had been quite similar. Except Minho hadn't had to say a word: Newt had taken it upon himself to silence him in the middle of a shouting contest. Another bicker Minho doesn't remember a lot about, but maybe there's a trend here...

“You sure?” Thomas whispers, leaning forward again, fingers drumming on the metal rail.

And hovering there, like a stupid shank.

“Maybe, maybe not. We can wait here until I fall asleep, then we won't have to wonder anymore.”

Thomas huffs out a laugh but bends closer to Minho's mouth nonetheless. Then soft lips graze on his chapped ones. A bare touch, for Thomas is too scared of hurting him to really press their mouths together, Minho can sense it. Still, the shy contact sends tingles through him. He can't wait to have Newt there as well.

“Shuck,” Minho sighs, eyelids fluttering.

“Are you okay? Is it- does it hurt? I'm sorry,” Thomas babbles.

“Thomas, slow down. Have some pity for my sedated brain.” Minho smiles, reaching for Thomas' curls. Which stand too far from him, so he settles for stroking the tiny stubble on his chin. “I'm happy, that's all.”

“We missed you so much, you have no idea. You shouldn't have stayed there for so long, alone...” Thomas pauses, threading his fingers with Minho where they rest on his jaw. “Newt paced for hours, day and night. I... every day I had flashes of those kids in WICKED. And of you.”

Minho doesn't tell him the flashes would have been much worse –more real– if Teresa had obeyed Janson. But Thomas has to know at least a part of this story.

“Thomas. One of the reasons I'm back with you –besides the fact that you guys saved me– is Teresa.”

The other boy turns his head away the moment Teresa's name comes out, the corners of his mouth falling downwards. Despite the effort it requires, Minho stretches his arm to stroke Thomas' jaw, fingers curling tenderly under his chin in the process to draw his attention back to him.

“Hey, Mister Thomas. I'm not asking you to build her an altar. I'm not asking you to forgive her either. That's between you and her. But... she's on our side. No, no, shut your mouth,” he puts two firm fingers on Thomas' mouth when he parts his lips, brown eyes burning with anger. For once, on the other hand, Minho feels perfectly calm. “Let me finish. She helped me from the start. On the first day, or second –I don't remember– they locked me in a room with a shuck slinthead and... uh, it got out of hand. At that point, I had no idea what had happened to Newt and you, or to the others. For all I knew, you could have been in the next room with another slinthead. Teresa was the one to tell me you were safe. She stood up for me. Tried to heal me.”

Minho stares at Thomas as he talks, watches how the exasperation leaves his face bit by bit. He is fully listening, perhaps willing to change his mind. Minho takes a small breath.

“Then the Rat Man attempted to use her against you.” Minho steels his voice and raises his chin a little. He makes a point of not looking away, even though it has rarely been so hard. “Put her in a room with me, tortured us. Both at the same time or one by one, depended on his mood. He wanted Teresa to use your telepathic link to contact you and lure you back.”

Thomas blinks, chasing away a few tears. “She... she never did.”

“No,” Minho confirms. “I forbade it. Although I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have obeyed the Rat Man anyway.”

“She should have, for once,” Thomas spits, and just like that anger fills his tone again. Minho wants to bang his own head on something. Preferably soft, like his pillow. “This way, you wouldn't have stayed a whole month in WICKED. I would have come sooner, damn shuck, I knew we were waiting for too long...”

Minho can't contain the weary, affectionate grin stretching his lips.

“Yeah, you would have rushed back to me. And get yourself captured in the process, you sweet shank. Look, I'm back. We're all together again. Everything's okay.”

“Except for what the Rat Man did to you,” Thomas groans, ominous.

“And I'll kill him for it. As I said: all is good.”

Anyone could see Thomas is ready to protest, but he doesn't get the chance. The door opens on Newt and Teresa. Minho can see the shadow of a third person waiting outside, maybe Vince. As long as whoever it is has the good idea to stay out of this room, Minho's fine with it. He already has enough to deal with, considering how Thomas tenses next to him the moment Teresa approaches the bed. Minho's too tired for that klunk.

“Vince will be waiting outside, just in case,” Newt announces as he limps to Minho's bedside. “Teresa can't stay for too long, okay? You do need to rest, Minho.”

“Okay.” He glances at Teresa and Thomas so busy staring at each other Minho suspects they might be having a telepathic fight. “How did you convince him?”

“I have my ways,” Newt smirks.

He leans down for a quick hug, allowing Minho to whisper his thanks in his ear. He also clutches on the blonde's shirt with one hand, keeping him there just a little longer. The truth is, Minho yearns to keep him there for hours.

“I’ll come back after Teresa leaves,” Newt whispers, as if reading his thoughts. “Someone has to make sure you behave.”

“Of course,” Minho replies.

Only now he consents to let go of Newt, who backs away with a wink.

“And don’t be an ass about your treatment. Tommy?”

Given how Thomas abruptly tears his gaze from Teresa’s, his head snapping towards Newt, Minho would definitely bet he was in the middle of a silent conversation with her. After a smile directed at Minho and without another glance at Teresa, he follows Newt outside.

“He’ll slim it eventually,” Minho says.

The girl shrugs, sliding in Newt’s empty chair. Her face still sports fresh bruises from their last moments with the Rat Man. Besides, Minho knows her ribs don’t look that good either. Grabbing the bottle of pills and the glass of water left on his bedside table, he hands them to her.

“Here. Thought you could need this.”

She takes them with a quirked eyebrow, smirking as much as her battered face allows.

“That’s why you called for me, right? To offer me your pills so that your doctor thinks you’re taking them?”

“Am I so obvious?”

They laugh, then Teresa pops two pills in her mouth, and Minho is relieved that she does it.

“You can keep them,” he offers. “The guys probably have dozens of bottles stored for me.”

“Don’t worry, they didn’t leave me with nothing. Though you got a much nicer bed.”

She puts the pills and the glass down and grabs the ointment instead.

“What are you doing?” Minho asks.

“Isn’t it why you asked for me?” the girls says, waving the tube in front of him. “Because you didn’t let the others touch you?”

“I wanted to check on you.”

He takes the tube from Teresa’s hand and pours a large amount of the clear substance on his fingers. Actually, it’s better this way: Minho knows which amount of pressure he can apply on his burns and if it hurts, he doesn’t have to be angry at anyone. They don’t stop chattering as he proceeds. Teresa tells him about the others who were also rescued –Aris and Sonya. Shuck, Minho didn’t even know they were in WICKED with them. Then she explains how Frypan seemed to be the only one glad to see her again, slipping her bits of extra food, coming to visit her during the day. Minho can picture the warm smile he offered her when they reunited. He isn’t surprised. Of all the Gladers, Frypan is the least likely to hold a grudge. After that, he shivers as she relates their escape, during which they had to flee both from WICKED soldiers and Cranks. Cranks. Newt. The memory of Janson snickering about Newt not being immune pops up in Minho’s mind. Why didn’t he remember sooner?

“Teresa… since you have your memories back, do you remember anything about those of us who aren’t immune?”

She seems at a loss for a second. Frowning, she shakes her head.

“No, nothing about that. Why?”

“Just asking.”

She sends him a quizzical look but doesn’t press the matter. Minho will have to find another way to figure out if Newt is in danger or not. Not having the slightest inspiration on how he can do that, he settles on keeping the boy far away from any Crank.

“I’ll talk to Vince once I’m better,” Minho adds, not quite subtly changing topics. “Convince him to slim it about you.”

“He’s the leader. And I understand why he does it.”

“Please. We’re Gladers. We stick together first and foremost.”

He could go on a rant about how much he values Vince’s leadership, though the door slides open, and Vince steps in, followed by Newt. The man nods towards the exit, a silent order for Teresa to leave. Then he glares at Minho as she complies, and the boy just holds his gaze, trying very hard not to smirk.

“He’s a real ray of sunshine,” Minho comments when the man leaves too.

Newt rolls his eyes as he kicks off his boots and walks around the bed. Grinning, Minho outstretches one arm and pushes away a corner of the sheet. Newt climbs over the metal rail to settle next to him with careful movements. He is on Minho’s good side, so the dark-haired boy doesn’t hesitate for a second: wrapping his arms around Newt, he presses him against his skin with a contented hum. They stay silent for a very long time, bathing in each other’s presence. Minho is half-tempted to pinch himself, just to make sure he isn’t on Janson’s torture chair anymore. But no, the soft hair tickling his shoulder is very real. Eventually, Newt pushes himself up on one elbow, his gaze encompassing Minho’s face, before leaning down to press a kiss on his temple, right where Minho loves it.

“You don’t have any ointment on your face and neck,” the blonde points out, a touch of reproach in his tone.

“It’s harder to put it where I can’t see.”

First Minho intends to leave it at that, but he thinks better of it. It _would_ make him feel better. Besides, there are many other parts he didn’t treat yet, like most of the burns covered by the sheet. Because if he had done so, he would have had to let the sheet stick to his wounds or stay half naked in front of Teresa, Vince, or whoever could decide to walk in. And thanks, but no. He has had enough vulnerable moments for the rest of his shuck life.

However… this is Newt. The boy who spent years with him in a hopeless place, who had his fair share of vulnerable moments himself. Minho saw the worst of what happened to him. And he doesn’t know what his own worst moment was, but Newt probably already witnessed it. Minho doesn’t have to hide from him. He grabs the tube of ointment, which he had dropped on the mattress.

“If you want to have the honor of pampering me, be my guest.”

Newt meets the bravado with his own smirk and sets to work. Minho doesn’t resist as Newt angles his face towards him with gentle fingers, yet he can’t stop his tensing. Despite the blonde’s care, it will hurt. And his body learnt to anticipate it.

“I’ll go slow,” Newt assures him.

Minho nods, swallowing loudly. Newt smiles down at him, presses another kiss on his cheek, not far from the burns edging on his hairline. Minho is still so busy savoring it that he doesn’t shudder at the first touch of the boy’s fingers with his damaged flesh. Or at the following one. It isn’t as bad as he thought, for now.

That part done, Newt kneels up on the mattress. He glances up at Minho, and upon a shaky nod from him, peels the sheet away. They both know what’s under it. That doesn’t keep Newt from scowling, or Minho from looking away, biting the inside of his lip. His fingers claw into the mattress, beyond any control.

“You know,” Newt says, calm as ever, “one day Harriet tried to teach Thomas how to set up a tent.”

“Wh-what?”

“Yeah. When we moved our camp.” The blonde stares at the burns as he applies the ointment as lightly as possible, but never stops talking. “It was bloody epic, man. Tent pegs flying everywhere, profuse swearing. You would have been proud, I swear. In the end, he got all tangled in the tent. Would still be there if Fry and Harriet hadn’t come to the rescue.”

“That s-sweet shank,” Minho stammers, a smile splitting his face despite his quivers. “Ah!”

Newt lifts his hand off Minho’s stomach, eyes closing for a brief second. As if he were the one to blame for all this pain.

“Sorry.”

“Nah… S’okay.”

The blonde resumes his task and Minho’s eyes fly to the ceiling. More than the pain, it’s panic that overwhelms him, the irrational fear that the Rat Man will pop in at any second. Then Newt pauses, long enough to catch Minho’s attention. He looks down, chest heaving, and meets Newt’s stare.

“You were there when Jeff set my leg right in the Glade, remember?”

Minho nods. He had been in the room with them, first far from Newt’s bed. But as the boy’s screams had gotten louder, Minho had rushed to him, gripping his hand and talking, a continuous flow of nonsense. He hates remembering that time.

“You told me to let go, to let _all_ the pain out,” Newt adds. He leans closer to Minho’s face and cradles the back of his head. “That’s what I’m telling you to do now. Let go. We’re strong enough to take it. You, Thomas and I.”

“The mighty Gladers, uh?”

“Shuck yeah,” Newt replies with a feral grin.

Now, as Newt’s fingers come into touch with his skin, Minho allows small sounds to come out of his throat. It is easier like this. Somehow, it hurts less. Almost done, Newt stays still for a while, gaze lost on Minho’s wounds. He notices many emotions flickering on the blonde’s face: melancholy, anger, guilt, sadness. Precisely what he never wants to see.

“I love you, shuck-face,” Newt says as he turns towards him slowly. “If we ever fight WICKED again –or anyone else– you _stay_ with our group. Don’t get yourself caught to protect us.”

At first, Minho stays speechless. He knows Newt loves him –they told each other so quite a few times in the Maze, each in their own way. But never with such brutal honesty. The butterflies erupting in his stomach almost prevent him from arguing.

“Better me than you.”

“No, Minho.”

Newt moves to hover above him, his hands on each side of Minho’s head. Because it’s Newt, Minho feels protected rather than threatened. He brings up both hands to grab his boyfriend’s forearms in a loose but comforting hold.

“Yes. Better me than you or Thomas,” he repeats, enunciating each word slow and clear.

“No, Min. I forbid it.”

Newt’s voice lowers to a muffled growl, typical of the moments where he both wants to kiss Minho and scowl at him. The dark-haired boy can see it on his face, crystal-clear.

“How could the second-in-command do that, hm?”

Newt dives on him before he can utter another provocation. The way he claims Minho’s mouth –it isn’t sweet or careful. He vibrates with raw energy, one hand sneaking into Minho’s hair to hold him where he wants him. Minho urges him on with a whine, ready to keep going until he falls asleep. He would be tempted to say until the day he dies, but that could be over-the-top. Of course, Newt has other ideas, and tears his mouth away. Not for too long, Minho hopes.

“I’m not speaking as your shucking second-in-command right now.”

“I’d listen to him if I were you,” Thomas says behind them.

He startles them both –focused as they were on their heated kissing, they hadn’t noticed the discreet slide of the door. Thomas grins as he approaches, stopping right next to Newt and wrapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Newt’s got some serious backup here. We won’t lose you again.”

“Fine,” Minho groans. “Can we at least resume the kissing? It is good for the pain. Will be twice as efficient with Thomas joining in.”

“If you promise you won’t be reckless,” Newt insists. “And no lies. We both know when you lie.”

Minho rolls his eyes. He should do it again –once for Newt and once for Thomas. But they might not appreciate the humor.

“Fine, I promise. Next time we see the Rat Man, he’s yours.”

He can tell from Newt’s scrunched up nose that he isn’t satisfied. Being in a hospital still plays in Minho’s favor though, and Newt shifts to let Thomas on the bed.

“I don’t think there’s enough room for the three of us,” their boyfriend says.

“Oh come on,” Minho whines. “We’re pro at squeezing. And I’m naked and this berg is shucking cold.”

“You’re not in a state fit for squeezing, Min,” Thomas retorts.

Which doesn’t mean he isn’t in the mood. Besides, he didn’t lie: apart from where the sheet hides his most private parts, nothing covers him. What could be better than body heat? With difficulty, Minho rolls on his left side, now facing Newt and leaving a good space behind him.

“C’mon Thomas. Last time I checked, I didn’t have any severe burn on my back.”

“Since you won’t give up…”

Thomas says it like he’s making some huge sacrifice, yet he can’t wipe his giddy grin away. Crawling over their legs and occasionally swaying aside as the mattress dips under his weight, he looks like he is stepping over a minefield.

“The doc would kill us,” Thomas huffs when he settles behind Minho, pressed against his back. “Okay, am I touching anything sensitive?”

“Nope.”

“Speaking of which, we’re not done, Min,” Newt declares.

He passes the ointment to Thomas, nodding at Minho’s hip. And here he thought he was going to enjoy this moment. His disappointment must show on his face, for Newt inches close to brush their lips together.

“When your burns aren’t raw anymore, we’ll kiss them better.”

“Can’t w-wait,” Minho stutters as Thomas’ lips lock on his nape.

He can’t stop his obscene moan, or the shudder that shakes his shoulders. After all this pain, he never suspected feather-light kisses could feel so good and soothing. As Thomas kisses his way along Minho’s collarbone, avoiding a few burns in the process, Newt lets his blunt nails trail on Minho’s skin, where delicious shivers make his hairs stand up.

“You’re killing me, guys.”

“We’re giving you motivation,” Thomas replies, “so that you don’t mess up with the doc’s orders.”

Minho hears him shift behind him and a second later, the other boy spreads the familiar cool substance on his hip. He is a bit messier than Newt, but it’s okay. Cradled between them, Minho already feels less… scorched. Sighing, he closes his eyes. His world narrows to the boys’ warm presence, and then he’s at peace.


	3. Chapter 3

Minho has to spend three more days inside the berg before the doc allows him outside. According to him, that time was necessary to administer vitamins and whatever other things to Minho. To make sure he “won’t faint as soon as he gets up” as the man said. At least, it gave him time alone with Newt and Thomas, a few moments with Teresa, and of course Frypan.

The doc also patches his worst burns before he releases him. Luckily, most of them were healing at the time Minho was rescued. In the end, the Rat Man focused on the sensitive parts, like his stomach and neck. Apart from that, he could say he’s alright.

If he didn’t look like he fell in one of Frypan’s boiling mixtures.

As he dresses up in front of a dingy mirror, Minho freezes with his shirt halfway down his chest. It’s awful. He looks awful. If the Rat Man hadn’t toyed with his wounds, perhaps the scars wouldn’t have been so vivid. But now, they’ll never disappear, even when the scabs come off and his skin tissues return to their usual tone. Minho should be grateful that he can conceal most of it under his clothes. But shuck it, shuck gratefulness. He has a permanent reminder of the threat looming above their heads engraved in his skin.

Minho hears the door opening behind him and pulls his shirt down. Not fast enough to hide what he was doing though, as he realizes when he catches sight of Newt’s reflection in the mirror. The blonde joins him, hooking his chin on Minho’s shoulder. His hands linger over Minho’s chest, then settle on his waist. It is impressive how Newt manages to avoid all the sensitive spots there, even through the clothes. Minho suspects the other boy learnt by heart where they were while Minho was asleep.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“It’s not so bad anymore. Nothing compared to what it was.”

They stare at each other in the mirror, until Minho’s gaze trails to the burns on his neck, creeping up on his jaw, along his ear. He turns to disentangle himself from Newt and go far away from this mirror, but his boyfriend doesn’t move an inch, instead tightening his arms around him. It is easy to forget how strong Newt is sometimes.

“Don’t consider them as a leash Janson put on you,” Newt whispers. “You will heal. You’re with us. Don’t let him win.”

“Then what should I tell myself when I see my ugl- my shuck face in a mirror?”

Newt straightens up and very slowly, giving Minho all the time he wants to back away, he cranes his neck to brush his lips over the burn sneaking up Minho’s temple.

“That you’re the Leader we look up to,” he replies. “The protective shank Thomas would die for in a hundred different ways, even the silliest.” Newt turns Minho’s head towards him, and the dark-haired boy startles when he sees unshed tears glinting in his brown eyes. “My fiery Runner.”

It knocks the air out of Minho’s lungs. Newt chuckles, shaking his head at himself.

“And if you want something more down-to-earth, let me tell you I could still stare at your shuck face for an embarrassing length of time. I’ll admit your hair isn’t that glorious right now, you’ll definitely have to do something about it.”

They both chuckle and Newt takes the opportunity to lead Minho to the bed. He pushes him back until the Leader’s back lays flat on the mattress. The blonde rucks up the shirt, nodding appreciatively.

“These abs? Still a piece of art, Min. And your ass? Very tempting, as always.”

Playing along and pursing his lips into an exaggerated O, Minho wriggles to push up his shirt until it rests high under his throat.

“And him?” he asks, pointing at one nipple.

“What about him?”

“He was my favorite. Half of him fried and vanished with the lightning.”

Newt nods several times as he considers what’s left of said nipple, very solemn. To Minho’s surprise, the blonde bends down to kiss it, tongue peeking out just a bit. Behind his readiness to laugh at this bundle of torn flesh, Minho does find it quite repulsive. The fact that Newt doesn’t even seem slightly disgusted… it amazes him. Makes him want to catch him into a hug and never let go.

“I loved him too,” Newt says as he raises his head from Minho’s chest, locking their gazes together. “Still do.”

Minho does give him a crushing hug. When he releases Newt –all disheveled– the smaller boy sports a very serious expression again, not the fake one from their mutual teasing.

“In the end, what I mean it’s… Min, when you look at your scars, don’t think of them as what almost broke you down. Just… see them as what never managed to completely break you down. A reminder of what you survived.”

“And would survive again,” Minho whispers, barely audible. He isn't sure why he says it. Maybe to convince himself, or maybe some part of him believes it. Now that he is back with Newt and Thomas, he feels like he could survive anything.

“Let's hope we don't come to that. Come on, get dressed. I would love to spend more time describing how hot you are, but Vince is waiting for us.”

“Why?”

Newt pats his knee and gets up, already heading for the door.

“You'll see.”

In his haste, Minho pushes his shirt down too fast and grimaces. Thanks all the gods, Newt can't see him, so it doesn't earn him another “be careful, Minho”. Ignoring the little bursts of pain walking causes in his body, he follows the blonde out of the berg –which is a lot bigger than he believed– and through the camp. Without surprise, Newt ducks into the larger tent. All of the others are there, sitting in a loose circle. Thomas, Frypan, Vince and the doctor, two rebels Minho doesn't remember, Harriet, Sonya and Aris, Brenda and Jorge. Of course, Vince didn't invite Teresa. Minho would like to argue about it, be even he knows when a battle can't be won. In silence, he goes to the last remaining seat between Newt and Thomas.

“Alright,” Vince says, “let's start. I don't want to lose any time. Now that all of you are fit for travel...”

His eyes go to Aris and Sonya, who both have huge dark circles under their eyes and a too pale complexion, then stay for a bit longer on Minho, flickering to the burns lacing his neck.

“Well, more or less fit for some,” the rebel adds, prompting a snicker out of the dark-haired boy. Everyone conveniently ignores it, except Frypan who hides his grin behind a loose fist. “We'll leave for Paradise soon. It's getting too dangerous for Immunes out there.”

Most of the others nod like they already knew. Minho suspects this is just an information session for those who were rescued.

“First we'll be taking a small group there. We still need fighters to help other rebel groups, so...”

“Who will be in that group?” Minho interrupts.

Everyone turns to him, except Newt who rubs his forehead with two fingers. As for Thomas, his knee starts bouncing up and down and he crosses his arms. A real party.

“You,” Vince answers. Minho can hear the effort it takes him to keep a calm voice. “Your friends, those who were in the Mazes.”

“And Teresa?”

Now the others don't just stare at him. Quiet chatter erupts among the former Gladers, while the rebels let out indignant exclamations. Nothing astonishing here. Vince leans towards him, resting his elbows on his knees and letting out a deep breath. Minho should probably feel like a kid who got caught doing some bad stuff.

“Minho,” Thomas whispers. “Stop.”

Minho's too caught in staring at Vince to reply. He won't look away first.

“Teresa won't be in that group,” the rebel declares. He sounds like this is the end of the conversation for him, but it's far from being the end for Minho.

“Why? She's immune. Which seems to be your only criteria.”

“Then let me refine my criteria: we're taking Immunes who didn't betray their own.”

“Shucking klunk, you're still on about this?”

“Minho,” Thomas says, louder.

“What is it with you and that girl?” Vince exclaims. “I swear, if it weren't for these two,” he points at Newt and Thomas, “I would start questioning your loyalties.”

This may or may not be the worst thing he could say.

“Yeah, go on. Talk to me about my loyalties, I'm all ears,” Minho spits.

By now, everyone is silent again. Waiting for who will give up, or who will throw the first punch. Even Vince blinks once or twice, at a loss of words for a split second.

“For your information,” Frypan tells Vince, “it's not personal. Minho's always had a little trouble with most authoritative figures.”

“It might be getting personal,” Minho growls.

On his left, Thomas fully turns to him. He puts a gentle hand on Minho's arm, the only kind of gesture they allow themselves in public.

“Look, we'll talk about it later, okay? We won't reach an agreement today.”

Thomas uses his softest tone, like he's afraid contradicting Minho is going to break him. Which is why Minho feels bad for what he says next, he really does.

“I'm not going to their Paradise anyway.”

“What?” Newt exclaims, yanking him around so they're face to face.

“Did Janson also played with your brain back there?” Jorge sighs. “Let's just put these kids in the berg and be done with it.”

“No!” Minho shouts. “Don't you get it? There's no Paradise! As long as Janson lives, there won't be any safe place for us. Wherever we go, he'll find us within a month. I won't go to some peaceful place and build a cozy little life just to have the Rat Man stomp in there with his crazy slintheads and rip everything away!” He pauses, both for breath and to look at Newt and Thomas, alternatively. Hoping they understand. Then he looks at every single person in this tent. “I don't want that. None of you does, trust me.”

Vince studies him for a long time. He doesn't look angry anymore. Only sad and sympathetic. All of a sudden, Minho remembers Janson telling him how is nothing more than a scared little boy. Is it how Vince sees him?

“We'll deal with Janson,” the man says. “You have my word. We need more time to gather all the rebel groups, that's all. But you kids are important. We can't risk your lives in this fight. You'll go far from here while we take out WICKED.”

“No.”

This is said so quietly Minho has trouble finding out who spoke. When he catches Sonya's eyes, sees how she worries her lower lip, he knows. She coughs, glancing at Harriet.

“He's right. WICKED won't stop and you'll need everyone to fight them. So... I will go to your Paradise. Once I've seen Janson dead.”

Vince rakes his hand through his hair, glancing from Harriet to Thomas and Newt, maybe in hope they're going to reason their respective Gladers. If he was indeed looking for that, it is a failure.

“They've got a point,” Newt admits with a shrug. “I’m not going without Minho anyway.”

“Me neither,” Thomas adds.

The other kids don’t say anything. They don’t need to. Frypan nods like a wise old man as he leans back into his chair and Harriet idly fiddles with the knife hung at her belt, a contemplative glint in her eyes. Vince studies all of them, then holds both palms up in the air and rises from his seat.

“I guess our departure just got delayed,” he sighs.

That’s the end of their meeting.

 

***

 

Minho doesn’t go back to the berg right away. He finds a quiet spot a little outside of their camp, among the rocks. There he can enjoy the view spread out under him. Minho loves mountains. Perhaps because everything was flat in the Maze –except for those shuck walls– and mountains, with rocks you can climb and caves where you can hide, are a nice change. For now he can’t do much climbing, but he sure hopes there’ll be mountains in Paradise. And lakes. Or a waterfall. Even if Minho doesn’t remember anything before the Maze, he knows he loves water as much as mountains.

He hears footsteps behind and knows who it is before anyone speaks up.

“We’ll be leaving in a few days,” Thomas says, leaning against the rock where Minho sits. “I’ll miss it.”

“I won’t,” Newt groans.

He limps around the rock and sighs as he sits down next to it, resting his head against Minho’s knees. Well, with his bad leg, Minho can’t blame him for not liking their rocky environment. All at once, remorse rises inside Minho. By refusing to go to Paradise, he may have shot down all of their hopes for a better life. If they die while fighting WICKED when they could have been safe somewhere else…

“Guys, I know I may have shucked up with Vince. Maybe we could be safe in Paradise. The Rat Man might not be smart enough to find it but… this life, in Paradise? I want it with both of you. And I don’t want any ‘maybe’ in it. I already pictured the Rat Man having you at his mercy, I don’t want it to happen for real. With him alive, we’ll never be truly free, even if we hide on the other side of the world.”

Newt lets his head fall back, eyes boring into Minho’s.

“We can relate to that, Min. You fear the Rat Man could take us, but we… we know what it’s like when he has someone you love.” Newt’s gaze trails behind Minho’s shoulder to find Thomas’. “We can picture it in very clear details.”

“Yeah… picture,” Thomas mutters to himself.

Minho cranes his neck to look at him, however Thomas stares at some invisible point on the horizon, not even noticing Minho’s frown. The taller boy lets it go. Whatever it is, Thomas will spit it out sooner or later. His own gaze wanders back to the mountains, to the camp below them. He scans the people milling around from tent to tent, babbling and sometimes laughing… and he catches a familiar silhouette next to Frypan.

“Is that…” he leans forward as he squints and almost knocks Newt’s head with his elbow in the process. “Teresa?”

“Oh, yes,” Thomas blurts out. “I spoke with the rebels. They’re keeping a close eye on her, however we thought that we might not need to have her locked away all day.”

Minho’s impressed, there’s no denying that. Even Newt seems taken aback.

“So you two worked things out?” Minho asks.

“Not really. It’s just… you trust her, so…we’ll start with that and see where it takes us.”

“Not back to WICKED, I hope,” Minho snickers. “Oh, please guys. Don’t pull such faces, I’m joking.”

He wriggles on his rock to pull Thomas beside him and wraps an arm around the boy’s waist. Thomas melts against him.

“There’s something else,” Thomas says.

Newt tenses against Minho’s leg and for a brief moment, Minho fears they’re going to announce him some bad news.

“Not long after they took you, I started having nightmares. I didn’t question them. Nothing odd there, and Newt had some too. But later, it got more… I don’t know, violent and real at the same time. Glimpses of you and Rat Man, horrible screams.”

“No,” Minho whispers. He draws back a little –can’t help it. Everything he wanted to keep from them, and if that’s what he thinks… Thomas stares at him with tear-filled eyes. It weren’t just dreams.

“I’m sorry,” the boy adds. “I dismissed them at first. I had no reason to think it was real.” Thomas glances down at Newt, who turned towards them. “I _didn’t_ want to think it was real, hoped it would go away. It just…”

His voice breaks. The little sniffle that escapes him breaks Minho’s heart.

“It got worse,” Newt finishes. Thomas’ whole confession doesn’t seem to surprise him. Knowing the blonde, he probably guessed long before Thomas what was happening. “You kept waking up all sweaty, several times a night. Yelling sometimes.”

“I understood when I started having flashes during the day. Random images, lasting no more than a split second. Once I saw you, trying to heal Teresa. You looked terrible, ready to pass out. I was in the middle of a conversation, so I knew. And I felt Teresa, I felt her loss of control. Like a dam breaking under water pressure. Despite not having sensed her presence for weeks, I knew it was her, it couldn’t be anything coming from my own mind. I believe she never realized I could perceive some of her thoughts and dreams.”

Minho doesn’t notice he’s been scratching the scabs on his face the whole time until Newt rises up and captures his hand. He finds himself a place on the rock and keeps Minho’s hand warm between his.

“Why changing your mind about Teresa now?” Minho asks. “You already knew all that five days ago.”

Thomas gives him a positively sour look.

“You should have seen yourself five days ago, Min. I took a look at you and… I hated Teresa all over again, no matter what had happened to her too.”

“What’s different today?”

Thomas stares at him for a long time, a strange, dreamy smile floating on his lips.

“Now we know you’re still you,” Newt says. “We know you’ll heal.”

“Oh,” Minho chuckles, bumping their shoulders together, “because you saw me being a pain in everyone’s ass?”

“Yeah, that…”

Minho laughs and buries himself against Newt, head resting in the crook of the blonde’s neck. Grabbing Thomas’ sleeve, he pulls him towards them. The closer these two shanks are, the better he feels. Yet there’s something in the way Thomas doesn’t look away from Minho’s eyes that makes his smile fade a little, forces him to take this more seriously than he wants to.

“What is it?”

“It’s also in your eyes, Min,” Thomas replies. “They are… I don’t know…”

“As beautiful as before?” Minho suggests.

“Oh, god,” Newt mutters.

“Yeah, still very beautiful,” Thomas laughs. “They’re… stubborn. As stubborn and alive as before.”

Newt tightens his arms around Minho and as relief seems to wash over Thomas, like he needed to say the words aloud to erase his fears, Minho understands how scared they were. How they thought he would never truly come back to them. The boy pulls Thomas flush against him, ignoring how it presses on some burns, and somehow Newt manages to wrap his arms around both of them, his fingers stroking the curls behind Thomas’ ear. There, warm and peaceful between them, Minho gazes back at the sun going down behind the mountains.

“I’m tougher than nails.”

 

***

 

They plan to move elsewhere, because Vince doesn’t like to stay for too long in the same place. They don’t get that chance. It happens on an early morning and before his little holiday in the WICKED facility, Minho would have been the first to hear the helicopters. He used to be a light sleeper. He still is, but he has been so sleep deprived that he doesn’t wake up until someone shakes him by the shoulder, a lot of times.

“Minho! Minho, wake up! They’re here!”

Minho doesn’t need to ask who is here; the look of absolute terror on Thomas’ face says everything. On instinct, he gropes at the spot where Newt fell asleep next to him, only to find still warm blankets, but no second-in-command.

“Where…”

“Right here,” Newt replies, appearing in front of him with a rifle strapped across his back. “Hurry, Min. We have to climb further up the mountain before these bloody shanks reach us. They won’t be able to land among the rocks, and we’ll need the head start.”

Newt hasn’t finished talking that Minho already hops off the bed, searching for a weapon. He shouldn’t expect to find one in this room, but Thomas hands him a heavy rifle.

“We were kind of fearing this,” the boy explains.

“You bet. But why the mountain?”

“Vince’s orders.”

Awesome. The mountain is the last place where Minho wants to go. Sure, they’ll have a better view of their assailant. And they’ll also be shucking stuck between stone and guns if the events don’t turn in their favor.

They don’t lose time talking after that. Minho focuses on getting ready the fastest he can, pushing at the back of his mind the pain awakening from several parts of him. Fighting’s going to be a real party, no doubt about it.

When they rush out of the berg and discover people running among the tents, most of them carrying weapons, then heading towards the safety of higher rocks, Minho has a horrible feeling of déjà vu. With the exception of one major point: Teresa, running towards them with widened eyes, her breath short. She glances at Thomas but as she starts talking, she mainly addresses Minho.

“I didn’t! I didn’t call them, I swear!”

“We know,” Minho replies. He doesn’t need any telepathic link to know how she feels, how her heart races in her chest at the idea of Janson approaching. His own heart beats so loud it almost hurts.

“We do?” Thomas mutters.

Well. Minho didn’t expect his mistrust to just vanish within a few days. Bickering will have to wait though. A missile flies above their heads and hits a tent, blowing everything up. Minho hopes no one was in there. With a short gasp, Newt grabs Thomas’ arm and pushes him to the mountain, then does the same with Teresa.

“Yeah, we bloody do,” he exclaims, and wraps his fingers around Minho’s elbow to get him moving. “Hurry!”

They follow a narrow path, so craggy it is hardly a path. Teresa and Thomas join the other rebels soon enough, all scattered around them, and find shelter behind a sturdy rock. Minho progresses rather slowly, however, it is worse for Newt. To reach Thomas and Teresa, they have to climb more than walk, and that won’t do. Once he ensures a good grip, Minho cranes his neck to glance at the boy behind him.

“Newt!”

The blonde is right on his heels, but Minho knows he won’t make it on his own, not in this environment with his bad leg quivering under him.

“Keep climbing, shank!” Newt yells. He glances behind him, then pushes Minho with one hand while he grabs his rifle with the other. “Shuck, hide!”

Looking up, Minho spots a WICKED soldier pointing a weapon at them. He doesn’t have to time to go up, and there’s nowhere to hide where they are, neither for him nor for Newt. The man stands far, but Minho sees him adjusting his aim, and he doesn’t have time to take his own rifle. They’re shuc…

The gunshot is deafening. Minho stays still for a second, preparing himself for a pain that never comes. Newt is plastered to the wall, next to Minho’s legs, one arm raised in front of his face. No blood, no wound Minho can see. So he looks back at the soldier. The man has slumped on his side, his weapon a little away from him. Of course, the gunshot was too loud to come from him. With a relieved grin, Minho turns towards Thomas, who breathes hard as he still aims his rifle at the wounded soldier. Critically wounded, Minho hopes.

“Come on, guys,” Teresa huffs, crouching to stay behind the rocks.

She catches Minho’s wrist, ready to pull him up.

“Wait,” he says. “Newt!”

It’s a warning more than anything else. Minho grabs Newt’s coat and gathers all of his strength to haul the blonde beside him. He groans through gritted teeth all the time, bites his lower lip to maintain his hold as Newt scrambles to get a steady foothold, scrunches his whole face to forget the pain in his side and stomach. After some struggle, Newt reaches Minho. They exchange a smile, both out of breath, and it might be silly and dangerous, but they take a few seconds to rest, pressing their foreheads together.

“Idiot,” Newt pants through his smile. “Get up there.”

“You first.”

“No one will get there first if they shoot you both,” Teresa reminds them, clutching Newt’s arm with her free hand.

She is right. Gunshots echo from everywhere, louder explosions too. One missile hits a rock not far from their hiding spot, and little pieces of stone rain on them. Teresa hoists Newt as Minho pushes him –or tries to– and within seconds the blonde ends up next to Thomas. He tries to scramble back to Minho, but Teresa waves him back at the same time Thomas wraps an arm around his shoulders to keep him close. Minho gives them both a thankful nod and focuses on climbing to them, fast. Teresa grips his arm and the cowl of his coat, waiting for his signal. They stare at each other and Minho thinks of all the times he had it worse in the maze, all the days he thought he wouldn’t reach the doors before nightfall. Nodding curtly, he pushes on his legs, tries to dig his fingers into the stone.

Behind Teresa, Newt swears, then fires at an enemy Minho can’t see. Teresa pulls him up twice harder, and with their combined efforts, they get him out of WICKED’s line of fire. For now. Minho collapses on the girl, his back pressed to her legs. Even with the bandages covering his stomach, the stone dragged on every place it shouldn’t have. Minho wheezes, wipes the sweat from his eyes. Right now, he feels like he will never manage to sit up again.

“Shuck… shuck everything.”

“You okay?” Thomas shouts between two gunshots.

“Radiant as ever,” Minho replies. He rolls on his side and his gaze catches Teresa’s. “Thanks.”

Out of breath, she sits up straighter as she smiles at him, then pulls out a gun from under her jacket. Minho isn’t convinced Vince or any other rebel gave it to her, but he won’t be the one complaining. Taking his own rifle in hands, he leans back against the rock, close to Newt and Thomas.

“If the Rat Man reaches us, he’s mine,” Minho warns them. “None of you goes near him.”

More than the intense, murderous urge rising up in him, it’s the need to protect that drives his decision. This time, it is all or nothing. WICKED won’t let anyone escape, even if that means killing some of their dear subjects. As for Minho, he won’t go back to this hell.

“The plan is to take him out _before_ he gets to us, actually,” Thomas says.

“Sure. Like things ever go according to plan,” Minho snickers.

Now that his heart has stopped trying to burst out of his ribcage and he is calm enough to avoid wasting too much ammunition, Minho turns around and props his rifle up in the rock. He doesn’t regret the efforts it took to get to this spot: they have all of the WICKED soldiers scattered under them and unlike the battle from the previous month, today they can properly fight back. Minho kills four of them as he scans the area to find Janson. He is somewhere near, Minho’s sure of that. The Rat Man wouldn’t miss such a show. But he won’t put himself in unnecessary danger either, won’t show up until most of the resistance dies down. It is going to get worse –the realization hits Minho like a punch to the jaw.

“We have to move!” he yells.

“Would love to,” Newt replies as he focuses on his target.

Minho waits until Newt fires to grip his shoulder and push him down behind the rock.

“It’s not a suggestion. We can’t stay here, they’re closing on us and the Rat Man…”

The tell-tale sound of helicopter blades interrupt him. Minho doesn’t check, yet it does sound like there’s more than one. He pushes Newt down as Teresa throws herself to the ground.

“Hide! Everybody take cover!” Vince screams from somewhere higher.

Of course, Thomas still fires at the soldiers, deliberately or not ignoring Vince’s order. Minho throws himself over Newt’s prone body and catches Thomas’ shirt. Pulling him down, he curves his upper body around the boy’s head the moment a missile hits a very close spot. The force of the explosion throws rocks of varying sizes everywhere. Some –smaller– land on them. Minho expects to be crushed every second. They hear other explosions, further away. When it becomes less likely they might have their skulls split open by a flying rock, Minho raises his head. Thomas heaves under him, but he is fine. Same for Newt and Teresa, who uncurl from each other hesitantly, casting suspicious glances at their surroundings.

“We go now,” Minho decides, handing them their respective weapons, “and that’s an order.”

Moving up doesn’t please him. They’ll be stuck with helicopters above their heads and soldiers at their feet. It is their only choice though. They’d better hope that a secret tunnel popped up somewhere in the mountains, otherwise they’re shucked.

Minho pushes the others forward on the single path they can use. For once luck is on their side and they’ll be able to hide behind rocks most of the way. Turning back to cover the others just in case someone has the terrible idea to shoot at them, Minho freezes. There. The Rat Man, hopping off a helicopter. The young man doesn’t think; he takes a step closer and raises his rifle. However, it doesn’t go further than that. Someone tackles him from behind, following him in his fall. Once on the ground, Minho whips around with a furious yell and finds himself face to face with Thomas.

“I had him, shank!”

“No, Min…”

“Yes! Shuck, let me go!”

But Thomas doesn’t, he grips Minho’s face with both hands and keeps him kneeling, eyes pleading.

“Min, look at the wall. Please, I know…”

Minho does. Notices where a bullet lodged itself in the stone, approximately where he was standing. He hadn’t seen it coming. Didn’t even consider this eventuality. All at once, Minho becomes aware of the noise around him again, of Thomas’ babbling, of his hands on his cheeks.

“Thank you, shuck-face,” Minho whispers.

Thomas gapes, then nods. Perhaps he didn’t expect him to calm down so easily.

“Look, we’ll get Janson. Not now, that’s all.”

Minho grabs one of Thomas’ hands, whose fingers thread with his right away, and they get up, bolting towards Newt and Teresa. Minho and Thomas stay behind them and take turn firing at their opponents. But the WICKED people climb faster than they do.

“Why isn’t Vince using his bloody missiles?” Newt groans as he climbs over a steep stone.

“We have missiles?” Teresa exclaims, voicing Minho’s thoughts.

“Yeah, a nice gift from… shuck,” Thomas pants, “from another rebel group.”

They progress over a particularly exposed area where a single wrong step could cause a broken neck. Minho keeps his eyes on those pursuing them. The Rat Man is among them, with what seems to be his personal escort. He will need it when Minho can put his hands on him. However, for now he isn’t in that position yet. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Guys,” he calls. “We might have to hurry a bit.”

“Almost there,” is Newt’s strained reply. “Come on, Tommy. Gimme your hand.”

Even though Minho can’t see them, he can picture Thomas’ outstretched arm, his vulnerable back exposed to anyone’s gun. Janson and his men are much too close. They’ll manage to take a shot at them anytime now.

“Get your ass up here, Tommy,” Newt says. The effort is obvious in his voice.

Janson grabs one of his men to deliver him some unknown order, then turns his predatory eyes to the Gladers. Minho fires before any of them can raise their weapon. He shoots a woman in the chest, a man in the leg. Another bullet barely misses the Rat Man’s head.

“Your turn, Minho!” Newt shouts.

Minho spins on his heels and just as he thought, Thomas and Teresa start firing to cover him. As he struggles with the slippery rock, Newt pulling at him with all his might, Minho can hear pained shouts behind, bodies falling to the ground. WICKED doesn’t want them dead, that’s their only advantage. But right when the thought pops up in Minho’s mind, Thomas gasps above him. He’s been stunned –Minho would recognize the bluish lights crackling on his chest any time. Teresa tries to catch him, but it would mean dropping her gun and get shot too.

Thomas crumples forward and falls on Minho. Newt’s scream rings louder than anything else as they crash to the ground. For horribly long seconds, the shock knocks the air out of Minho’s lungs. He can see Newt and Teresa emptying their weapons from the corner of his eye, but even with the urgency of the situation, he has trouble getting his body into motion again. And he knows it is worse for Thomas, by far.

“Go get them!” Janson screams.

Groaning, Minho rolls over and ends up half sprawled on Thomas. Five men climb up the path, including the Rat Man. Two of them fall dead –or something close to it– courtesy of Teresa or Newt. Maybe both. Cursing to give himself some strength, Minho stands up in front of Thomas. He doesn’t have time to adjust his grip on his weapon and has to throw himself aside to avoid the next shot aimed at him. But at least, the men come within arm-reach. Minho lunges on the one who tried to shoot him. They’re in a dead-end; there is no fight or flight. Just fight. He hits the man’s face with the butt of his rifle, follows with an elbow to the throat. If he can’t stop them, they’ll take Thomas first, then Newt and Teresa. Minho yells and hits the man with a newfound rage.

“Min, get down!” Newt exclaims.

He obeys without questioning it. A second later, a limp body falls on the ground, almost onto him. Minho scrambles away from the dead soldier, but the man he thought he had knocked out locks his arms around his neck. He thrashes to free himself. Would manage to do so if he had all his strength back. As it stands, he feels like a helpless fish twitching out of water, kept down by arms much more powerful than his own and reduced to watch the Rat Man walk over to him with his trademark smirk, ready to stun him with his weapon. Somehow, over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, Minho notices Newt's cursing and the little clicks typical of an empty magazine. And apparently, Teresa isn't doing any better. Minho elbows the guy holding him, squirms to scratch his face. He has ammunition in his own rifle, he just needs to _reach_ the shuck thing.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” Janson sighs.

His boot catches Minho in the stomach, and the young man's vision instantly blurs, both because of the tears and dizziness. He screams as an agonizing pain flares inside of him. And then, someone screams louder than him. Minho can't see, can't focus. Yet he has to.

Minho takes a deep breath. The man still holds him, so he isn't attacking Thomas. Besides, the voice doesn't sound like Thomas' at all. Can't be Teresa either. Minho blinks through his tears, craning his neck. Newt bends over the Rat Man, punching him into the ground. Minho wants to laugh and scream at the same time, hurl Newt away from the slinthead.

Suddenly, someone rips the guy away from him. Teresa, who dives for Minho’s rifle and shoots the man without blinking. Well, she shoots him in the leg, but it is enough for Minho. His first urge is to turn back to check on Thomas. He postpones it though. He can’t do anything –doesn’t want to– when the Rat Man takes a nasty swing at Newt’s jaw and sends him crashing to the ground, blood spilling from a cut on a lip. The man lost his weapon at one point, so he bends over Newt, hits him again on the temple. The blonde goes limp as a soft whimper falls from his lips.

Forgetting everything else, Minho jumps on his feet just long enough to lunge on the Rat Man. He tackles him with a roar, putting his body between the man and Newt. He pushes Janson on his back and straddles his chest. Thanks to the Maze, the former Runner has quite strong legs –the Rat Man won’t buck him off.

“You will not touch any of them again,” Minho growls, fingers clenching around the cowl of Janson’s coat.

“Oh, A7. I bet that’s also what you believed before we caught you the first time. What could change now?”

Minho punches him in the nose, both for the use of his subject number and to make his point.

“You shucking pissed me off,” he hisses in Janson’s ear.

He doesn’t give the Rat Man the opportunity to answer. He hits him three or four times but has to let go when Janson slams his fist on his thigh, right upon what used to be a deep burn. The older man flings Minho against a rock and pins him there by compressing his throat with his forearm. Minho glances at Teresa. She is busy firing at some threat he can’t see. Thomas hasn’t moved from the spot where Minho left him and Newt tries to push on his knees inch by inch, head squeezed between his hands.

“I think I’ll put the three of you in the same room,” Janson laughs. “Force one of your little boyfriends to decide who should be punished each time you badmouth someone. Oh, the brain patterns we’ll get from this!”

If Minho didn’t have to save his breath, he would have at least a dozen things to retort. His fists fly to Janson’s already bloody face, yet the man holds tight. He is strong, Minho can’t deny it. As his hands slide down Janson’s skin, grabbling for purchase, his fingers catch on his cowl. To reveal thick, dark veins. Too distinct veins. Minho’s struggling stops all at once.

“As you can see,” the Rat Man says with a frightening calm, “we’re in dire need of a cure.”

On their own accord, Minho’s eyes shift to Newt, still groaning and hunched over himself. Maybe Janson was toying with him, maybe Newt is immune. Yet what if he’s not? What if the split lip Janson gave him infected him?

Rage and despair, and pain –a pain worse than any burn or cut on his skin– clash inside Minho. It gives him the strength he needs to twist his whole body out of the Rat Man’s grasp. In an effort to escape and hurt at the same time, Minho grips his shoulders and repels him against the nearest rock. Janson’s head hits it first with a disgusting crack. If it’s any indication, he should be out for some time. As the man falls on the floor, eyes glassy and still, Minho is sure he’ll be out for a very long time.

“Minho!” Teresa screams. She barely glances away from her targets, but worry is clear on her face. “Are you okay?”

He whispers an affirmative she can’t hear and rushes to Newt to pull him up with more force than necessary. Minho can’t help it. He turns Newt’s face from side to side, tries to see if there’s a change in his eyes, or in the color of his lips. He can’t look away from the droplets of blood shining on his skin. Such a tiny wound, which could cost them so much.

“Bloody hell, Minho, what are you doing?” Newt grunts.

“Shuck it! Shut your mouth,” Minho snaps. “I told you to stay behind!”

This sudden outburst seems to help clearing Newt’s head. He frowns, leaning back to stare at Minho.

“You couldn’t beat them, Min. Look, we’re fine. You…” Newt leans aside to glance above Minho’s shoulder. “Just killed Janson, I guess. So you can slim it, okay?”

“He had the shucking Flare!” Minho screams, loud enough that even Thomas shifts in his half passed out state.

Newt blinks several times. But why doesn’t he look as horrified as Minho feels?

“Yeah, good for us. If he had it, other people at WICKED may be sick too.”

“No, shank. He hurt you –what if you catch it too, uh?”

_What am I going to do if you catch the Flare?_ Minho wants to ask. _How am I supposed to live?_

He fights to repress his tears at the prospect. It paralyzes him –they should keep moving and try to reach Vince, but he can’t get up. Minho hears Teresa shooting in the background and knows he should help her. None of it matters.

“He told me you weren’t immune,” Minho admits, voice soft again, a bit strangled.

Newt widens his eyes and in a flash, wraps his arms around Minho’s neck to press their bodies together.

“The slinthead lied to you, Min.” The reveal is so unexpected that Minho almost misses what Newt says next. “We went to a town a few weeks ago. A Crank attacked me there, bit my bloody arm. But that was it, nothing more than a bite. Nothing like… what happened to Winston.”

“Shuck,” Minho breathes out in a nervous chuckle. “I’ve never been so afraid.”

He whispers his confession against Newt’s neck, where no one else can hear it. Not that anyone is trying to listen, but still. The world starts turning again and gradually, Minho becomes aware of the chaos that never stopped around them. Time to move. Newt is going to live; it would a shame to get killed now. Squeezing the blonde’s nape before they part, Minho rushes to Thomas while Newt grabs their boyfriend’s forgotten rifle.

“Come on, shank, wake up!” Minho exclaims, catching Thomas under his arms and dragging him in a more sheltered corner.

Thomas groans as his head lolls aside, though Minho can’t determine if that was an intentional movement or not. Even though the smaller boy seems to regain control of his mouth, it becomes clear he won’t be fit for a run any time soon. And they won’t be able to both carry him and protect themselves.

Another missile explodes on their right and Minho falls backwards, landing with Thomas sprawled between his legs. A helicopter approaches, all its lights on them. Minho has to protect his eyes with one hand, the other firmly keeping Thomas against him. Shouts echo around them, screams about hiding, but Minho has no idea if it comes from their side or WICKED’s.

Then everything goes brighter, with flames and sparks, like some very expensive fireworks. Or what Minho pictures as fireworks. The helicopter shatters to pieces, its remnants crashing on the mountain. Teresa and Newt scream as they take cover next to Minho, though a smile soon breaks on Newt’s face.

“Our missiles!”

“No shit,” Minho replies with a large grin.

He glances up just in time to see the second missile fly above their head and land amongst the WICKED soldiers. Another one follows. Then two, three, and Minho stops counting. It is almost mesmerizing. Perhaps because it sounds like freedom, at last.

“What…” Thomas groans.

Minho pulls him up against his chest in a somewhat sitting position. Squeezed between a recess in the stone on one side and Newt and Teresa on the other side, and with Thomas bundled in his arms, Minho rarely felt so well, even though it looks like the world falls apart around them. Maybe the Rat Man managed to shuck him up in the head, after all. Who cares? The Rat Man died. They won’t.

“You woke up for the grand finale, shank,” Minho whispers.

 

***

Minho didn’t expect Paradise to look like an actual paradise. Maybe because he never tried to picture it. He didn’t have time to do that –he was too focused on staying alive. And during his time with Janson, it gave him more strength to picture Newt and Thomas alive, rather than a hypothetical Paradise he might never see.

But truth be said, Minho loves this place the moment his feet hit its soft grass. He stares at the large meadow spreading in front of him without another thought running in his mind. He loves it. He is free. They are free. Janson is dead and WICKED will disappear too. From what Vince heard, several of its highest members caught the Flare. For the first time in years, Minho can breathe again.

People move around him, startling him out of his musing. Teresa passes by him, stops for a few seconds to put a soft hand on his shoulder. They don’t need to speak. They nod at each other and a wave of respect washes over Minho. If someone had told him one day that he would come to respect Teresa, he would have laughed. But they have been through so much together.

She walks away and after a bit more contemplation of the scenery, Minho turns to his friends. His first look is for Newt. For a few seconds, Minho only looks at the blonde. It isn’t a matter of loving him more or less than Thomas. That’s not the reason he can’t look away from Newt. Before Minho can move on and think about their new life together, with their friends, in a safe place, he has to know if Newt likes this place. He is ready to relocate a hundred miles away from here if needed. Newt hated the Maze more than anyone, whispered it many times at night in Minho’s ear. So it is very important that Newt likes this new place.

And Newt smiles at him. A tired yet genuine smile which seems to make him glow. He looks younger, suddenly. Thomas says something Minho doesn’t hear, but it makes Newt giggle and he ruffles Thomas’ hair. Minho’s heart swells in his chest at the sight. He loves them so much, these shanks. They probably have no idea how much he does.

 

 

“Do you feel better here?” Thomas asks him one night, his head resting on Minho’s bare chest.

They’re both laying lazily in the little hut they built for themselves. A bit small, but that’s all they could afford for now. Besides, Minho likes it –all comfy and intimate.

“Did I ever look like I felt bad?” Minho snorts.

“Min. You know what I’m talking about.”

Thomas’ fingers, which had been trailing on his healed burns the whole time, stroke his skin with more insistence.

“I’ve never felt this good,” Minho admits.

“Do you want it to get even better?”

Thomas’ head snaps up as he speaks and a mischievous glint appears in his eyes. He throws one leg over Minho’s thighs, angling his upper body to cover more of Minho’s chest.

“Dude, you scare me sometimes.”

It doesn’t damper Thomas’ enthusiasm, which becomes contagious and piques Minho’s curiosity. Patience never was his thing, though.

“Well?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “What are we waiting for?”

“Me.”

Newt pushes the heavy fabric they use as a front door –didn’t have time to build one yet– and slides inside the room, smug smile plastered on his face. If his hair wasn’t all wet from the bath he just had in the nearby stream, Minho would swear he and Thomas staged this up.

“You two have an amazing timing,” he notes. “Or did you develop a telepathic connection while I wasn’t looking?”

Newt laughs as he kisses Thomas on the jaw, then flops down by Minho’s side. He shakes his wet hair like some cute puppy, deliberately oblivious to Minho’s glare when he receives droplets of water all over himself.

“Remember when we said we would kiss these better?” the blonde asks.

He runs his index on the ugly scar around Minho’s nipple, and the taller boy can’t repress his shiver. A delicious shiver. Minho sinks further in their makeshift cot, spreading his arms and legs as much as he can with the two boys flanking him.

“I’ve waited so shucking long for this.”

Newt winks at Thomas and bends over Minho to kiss the other boy, long and languorous. It awakes contradictory feelings in Minho: they just look so happy he could watch them go at it all night and on the other hand… Patience? Again, not his thing. And they know it.

At least Thomas takes pity on him. While kissing Newt, his hand sneaks up in Minho’s hair to cradle the back of his head, nails scratching just a bit on his scalp. Minho arches under them, which prompts a muffled moan out of Newt. Minho pushes upon his elbows to nip at his jaw, but without interrupting his kissing, Newt pushes him in the cot with a hand on his chest. At last, when he and Thomas have to part for breath, they turn to Minho.

“You shanks are hot like this, but I’d love to add to the hotness, you know.”

Newt rolls his eyes as he puts a hand on Minho’s biceps to keep him pinned and settles the other one on Thomas’ waist.

“Keep his bloody mouth occupied.”

Thomas complies with an evil grin. Minho welcomes him with open arms, or rather, an open mouth. And after that… well after that, he almost wants to bless the lightning struck for happening. Newt is all over him, warm tongue and warm breath on every part of his body that got hurt, and Thomas keeps kissing him like they’re going to die tomorrow. Minho throws his leg over the boy’s butt to bring him closer, his fingers fumbling incoherently over whatever surface they can reach.

All the pain he suffered, they’re turning it into sweetness and love. And like that, as he lets his head roll back, a single tear escapes. Thomas, red-cheeked and panting, freezes above him.

“Minho… You okay?”

Newt springs up to peer at Minho’s eyes. He is so serious that anyone walking in would never guess he was unleashing a kissing storm on Minho’s a second ago. Minho laughs, and another tear rolls on his skin.

“Did we… Was it too soon?” Newt asks, voice raspy.

They look terribly worried and Minho should answer right away, yet his mouth doesn’t obey him. For maybe half a minute, all he can do is stare at them and think that if they want it, every night can be like this. Minho’s breath hitches in his throat.

“I just love you, shanks.”

That earns him a glare and a swat on his head, then a crushing hug.

 

***

 

Minho often goes into the forest around their settlement –for wood or food. One day he goes a little further than usual, without any real goal in mind. Giddily, he notes that it’s the first stroll he ever remembers taking. In the Maze, wherever he went, he had something in mind. Running, helping someone, coming back to the Glade. There was no time for leisure.

However, today Minho revels in the peaceful walking. His body doesn’t ache anymore –apart from small pains– which is quite a change from the Maze, where everything hurt, all the time. He walks for maybe thirty minutes and right when he decides to go back, a faint sound catches his attention. A steady rumble, somewhere north. Minho heads towards the source of the noise, praying he doesn’t get lost.

He doesn’t regret postponing his return, because if he had turned back, Minho wouldn’t be standing in front of the most beautiful waterfall he ever saw. Okay, the only waterfall he ever saw. Still, it is high and majestic and everything Minho pictured in his wildest dreams. He takes off his shoes and steps in the water, hissing when it hits his ankles. Not warm enough to jump in, however with some drive, it will do.

So Minho steps out of the water, trips over himself in his hurry to put his shoes back on, and runs. He runs back to the settlement, where he knows he will find Newt laughing with Frypan –Newt laughs a lot more than he used to– and perhaps Teresa in a quiet talk with Thomas, both of them exchanging little smiles from time to time.

Minho runs because he wants to. Not to flee from anything or to bring some bad news. He runs with a grin on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that is all. Thank you all for reading, and happy new year!


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